Anne Mitchell

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Bio

Video Introduction

I am the author of Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War (2016) which was awarded the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Douglas Dillon Award, the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations’ Robert Ferrell Prize, and the Choice Outstanding Book award.  My first book was The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America, 1895-1914 (1999).  I contributed the chapter on “The Cold War and Jimmy Carter,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War (2010) and that on “The United States and Europe, 1900-1914,” in American Foreign Relations since 1600: A Guide to the Literature Online, (2007).  My articles have appeared in Cold War History, International History Review, Diplomatic History, Prologue, Journal of American History, H-Diplo, and H-Pol.  I was elected to the Academy of Outstanding Teachers at NC State.  My next project is an analysis of US foreign policy in the 1970s.

Publications

For full list, please see my CV.

“Is Donald Trump Jimmy Carter, or is he Kaiser Wilhelm II?” in Robert Jervis, et al, eds., Chaos in the Liberal Order: The Trump Presidency and International Politics in the 21st Century (Columbia University Press, 2018)

Review/Essay on Myra F. Burton, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XVI, Southern Africa in American Historical Review, 123:3 (June 2018), 893-96

Jimmy Carter in Africa: Race and the Cold War (Stanford University Press, 2016; paperback edition, 2018)

• Awarded the Douglas Dillon Award, American Academy of Diplomacy
• Awarded the Ferrell Prize, Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations
• Choice Outstanding Academic Title
• See reviews in Christian Science Monitor, H-Diplo, and H-War (for full list, see CV)
• Listen to podcasts about the bookon New Books Network (May 2018) and “The Road to Now” episode 35, Dec. 19, 2016

“How the U.S. aided Robert Mugabe’s rise,” The Washington Post, Nov. 26, 2017

“Race and the Cold War,” Stanford University Press Blog, April 2017

“The Cold War and Jimmy Carter,” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, v. 3: Endings, edited by Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge University Press, 2010): 66-88

“Terrorists or Freedom Fighters: Jimmy Carter and Rhodesia,” in Cold War in Southern Africa: White Power, Black Liberation, edited by Sue Onslow (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 177-200.

“The United States and Europe, 1900-1914,” American Foreign Relations since 1600: A Guide to the Literature Online, edited by Thomas Zeiler and Robert Beisner (Santa Barbara, California: ABC Clio for the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, 2007): 539-92

The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America, 1895-1914 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999)

“Protective Imperialism versus Weltpolitik in Brazil: Part Two: Settlement, Trade, and Opportunity,” International History Review (August 1996): 546-72

“Protective Imperialism versus Weltpolitik in Brazil: Part One: Pan-German Vision and Mahanian Response,” International History Review (May 1996): 253-78

“The Height of the German Challenge: The Venezuela Blockade, 1902-3,” Diplomatic History (Spring 1996): 185-209

“Germans in the Backyard,” Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives (Summer 1992): 174-83

Presentations

For full list, please see my CV.

“Lessons from the Carter Era” at CIA Analysts conference, “Great Power Competition in Sub-Saharan Africa,” CIA Headquarters, June 2018

“Rigorous and Insatiable Curiosity,” Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations, Philadelphia, June 2018.

“The Challenges of American Empire,” Carolina Public Humanities, UNC-Chapel Hill, June 2018.

“Kissinger & Carter in Africa: Reflections on Methods and Myths,” Contemporary History Institute, Ohio University, April 2017

“Bullying and Confounding: Henry Kissinger in Rhodesia,” African Studies Association, Washington DC, 2016

“Race and the Cold War,” The Center for the United States and the Cold War, New York University, New York, November 2016

“Henry Kissinger & Jimmy Carter in Africa,” The Wilson Center, Washington DC, October 2016

“Jimmy Carter,” The Carter Center, Georgia, September 2016

“Three Myths,” The Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), California, June 2016

“Turning Point 1916? U.S. Foreign Relations before and after the ‘Kept Us out of War’ Election,” The American Historical Association, Atlanta, 2016

“Jimmy Carter, the Cold War & Africa” and “Five Minute Insights” in the Krasno Lecture Series: “The US in World Affairs: the Cold War and Beyond,” The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015

“Jimmy Carter and the End of UDI,” The Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), Virginia, 2015

“African Americans and U.S. Foreign Policy from Kennedy to Clinton,” chair, SHAFR, Virginia, 2015

“Elation, Confusion and Fear: The First Decade of the Cold War,” OLLI, January 2015

“The Real Costs of the War in the Ogaden,” SHAFR, Kentucky, June 2014

“The Firing of Andrew Young,” SHAFR, Virginia, June 2013

“The United States, Germany, and the Atlantic in a Globalizing World, 1840-1914,” commentator, The Organization of American Historians, Minneapolis, March 2007

Moderator, “Lessons Learned: A Conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski,” The Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, March 2007

“Jimmy Carter and the Cold War,” Cambridge History of the Cold War Conference: Endings, 1975-1991, Washington, March 2007

“In the Sands of the Ogaden,” at “From Helsinki to Gorbachev, 1975-1985: The Globalization of the Bipolar Confrontation,” The Cold War International History Project and the Machiavelli Center for Cold War Studies, Florence, April 2006

“Memory, Morality, and Realpolitik,” at “Rhodesian UDI: 40 Years On,” The Cold War Studies Centre of the London School of Economics, January 2006

“Surprises before World War One,” SHAFR, Toronto, June 2003

“Human Rights and Civil Rights: Carter and Zimbabwe,” The Rothemere Institute of American Studies, Oxford University, November 2002

Graduate Advising

Chair, Masters  (I list only those committees I have chaired.)

Patrick Bizieff,  Jimmy Carter and the Shah: US Foreign Relations with Iran a Year before the Fall of the Shah, 2019

Kelsey Zavelo, “In Transition: The United States and South Africa, 1976-1977” (History, 2015), Winner: History Thesis Award

Thomas Schultheiss, “Jimmy Carter’s Geneva Peace Conference: Doomed or Defeated?” (History, 2014)

Ian Lear-Nickum, “Mossadegh in America: A Turning Point, October 8-November 18, 1951” (History, 2013)

Drew Wofford, “A Special Relationship in the Air: The Role of Civil Air Transportation in Foreign Relations Between the United States and Great Britain” (History, 2013)

Oliver Ham, “A Change in German-American Relations: The German Nuclear Deal with Brazil” (History, 2012)

Clifford Casper, “Tragic Pragmatism: Liberia and the United States, 1971-1985” (History, 2011)

Brian Trenor, “The Polish Desk: Radio Free Europe, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Jimmy Carter’s Polish Policy 1976-1977” (History, 2011)

Aaron Brown, “The Pains of Withdrawal: Carter and Korea, 1976-1980,” (History, 2011)

Shannon Nix, “Absolute Commitment: Ideology, Human Rights and the Carter Administration’s Policy toward Central America, 1978-1979” (History, 2009)

Lauren Raper, “Blest be the Ties that Bind: The 1986 Montagnard Resettlement to Greensboro, North Carolina and the Reshaping of the Memory of the Vietnam War,” (History, 2009)

Chris Dempsey, “The Other Side of the Story: Vietnam Escalation and Global Army Readiness, 1965-1968” (History M.A. Thesis, 2009)

Frank Blazich, “Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow: The North Carolina Civil Defense Agency and Fallout Shelters, 1961-1963” (History, 2008) Winner: Nancy G. Pollock Thesis Award

Matt Rosencrance, “The Benefits of Stabilizing North Korea through Economic Engagement” (International Studies, 2008)

Allen Montague, “A More Muscular Foreign Policy: Saudi Arabia and the Militarization of US Middle East Policy, 1979-80” (History, 2007)

Amy Vidunas, “Jimmy Carter, Mexico, and the Natural Gas Negotiations of 1977-1979” (History, 2007)

Todd Pfeffer, “‘The Drill’: The Emergence of the ‘New Right’ as a force in U.S. Conservative Politics during the Panama Canal Debates, 1977-1978” (History, 2006)

Pat Vanscoy, Interdisciplinary Studies, 2005

Coleman Mehta, “‘A Rat Hole to be Watched”? CIA Analyses of the Tito-Stalin Split, 1948-1950,” (History, 2005)

Norwood McDowell, “War Eagles: A Bird’s Eye View of 305th Bomb Group and the Eighth Air Force from the experiences of David C. Cox and Joseph B. Boyle,” (History, 2005)

Matthew Poteat, “To the Last Man and the Last Dollar: Governor Henry Toole Clark and Civil War North Carolina, July 1861 to September 1862,” (History, 2005)

Sara Milani, “Edward Hall and Early Cultural Training at the Foreign Service Institute” (International Studies, 2005)

Adam Coleman, “The Devil You Know: US-Haitian Relations, 1957-1968,” (History, 2004)

Brad Helton, “Revolving Door War: Former Commanders Reflect on the Impact of the Twelve-Month Tour Upon Their Companies in Vietnam,” (History, 2004)

William Knapp, “The Colombian Drug Trade and the Threat to US National Security” (International Studies, 2003)

Hamid Madi, “The Western Sahara Conflict:  US Foreign Policy at Work” (International Studies, 2003)

Robert Mitchell, “Political Shifts During the Carter Years: North Carolina Conservativism and Stokes County’s Perception of Tobacco, The Economy, and Foreign Policy,” (History, 2003)

Tim Young, “Humanitarian Intervention and the Clinton Doctrine: A New Moral Imperative or Traditional Geopolitical Exigency?” (International Studies, 2003)

James Lowe, “Edward Luttwak’s Neoconservative Critique of Carter Administration Foreign Policy” (Liberal Studies, 2002)

Javan Frazier, “Key Moments in Nuclear Cooperation between the United States and South Africa, 1953-1981” (History, 2001)

Jason Burton, “Jimmy Carter’s Response to the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan” (History, 2001)

Lane Moore, “Jimmy Carter’s Vietnam Policy in 1977” (History, 1999)

Dan Cook, “Crisis in Kabul: The Kidnaping and Assassination of Ambassador Adolph Dubs, February 14, 1979” (History, 2000)

Stephen Harrison, “Jimmy Carter vs. Congress: The Debate over Rhodesia and the Rise of Jesse Helms” (History, 2000)

Jonathan McCoy, “Taiwan, the Tar Baby of US-China Relations: Goldwater v. Carter” (History, 2000)

Robert Richardson, “Negotiating Reality: The National Intelligence Estimates and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1965-1980” (History, 1999)

Nancy Kaiser, “The Southern Council on International Relations, 1937-1948” (History, 1998)

Kirk Warner, “Testing the Waters: America’s First Foray as a World Power. The 1895 Venezuelan Border Crisis” (History, 1999)

Marc Hellems, “Hugh Gladney Grant’s Coverage of the Italian Infiltration and Invasion of Albania: 1935-1939” (History, 1998)

Meredith Lewis, “Watergate and American Foreign Policy” (History, 1998)

Member, PhD Committees

Drew Wofford, “History at the Speed of Sound: A Transnational Case Study of the Concorde Supersonic Transport as a Reflection of Critical Issues in Postwar Europe,” (University of Miami, 2020)

Robert Richardson, “Neoconservatism: Origins and Evolution, 1945-1980” (UNC, 2009)

Matt Jacobs, “Constructing the Middle East: Networks, Frameworks, and U.S.-Middle East Relations, 1945-1967” (UNC, 2003)

Chair, Undergraduate Honors Theses

Brandon Libro, “The Great Game: The Carter Administration’s Response to the Soviet Intervention in Afghanistan Between December 24th, 1979 and January 4th, 1980” (2015)

Ian Farrell, “Atomic Stalemate: The Carter Administration’s Response to the 1975 Brazilian-West German Nuclear Agreement” (2010)

Jacob Morton, “Faster, Higher, Stronger: Jimmy Carter, Congress, and the 1980 Olympic Boycott” (2010)

Laura Farkas, “Human Rights, Foreign Policy, and Jimmy Carter” (2003)

Jennifer Hartman, 2003