Sep 7, 2018 - Dr. Melvyn P. Leffler, Edward Stettinius Professor of American History at the University of Virginia, will speak twice about the Cold War on Monday, October 22, as the 2018 Carls-Schwerdfeger History Lecturer. At 2:00 p.m. he will talk about “Harry Truman and the Origins of the Cold War” in Salon II of the Carl Grant Events Center. His evening lecture, titled “Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War,” will take place in the G. M. Savage Memorial Chapel at 7:15 p.m. A book signing will follow the evening presentation. Both lectures are free and open to the public.
Leffler has written extensively on the Cold War and on American foreign policy from 1917 to the present, including two prize-winning books. His monograph For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War (Hill and Wang, 2007) earned him the American Historical Association’s 2008 George Louis Beer Prize – given for the best book in European international history. In 1993, he won three prizes for his book A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford University Press, 1992): the Bancroft Prize from Columbia University; the Robert H. Ferrell Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations; and the Hoover Book Prize from the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association.
Other books he has authored or edited include: author, Safeguarding Democratic Capitalism: U.S. Foreign Policy and National Security, 1920-2015 (Princeton University Press, 2017); co-editor, Peril: Facing National Security Challenges (University of Virginia Press, 2016); co-editor, Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World (Harvard University Press, 2016); co-editor, In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy after the Berlin Wall and 9/11 (Cornell University Press, 2011); co-editor, Cambridge History of the Cold War (3 vols.; Cambridge University Press, 2010); co-editor, To Lead the World: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine (Oxford University Press, 2008); co-editor, The Cold War: An International History (2nd ed.; Routledge, 2005); author, The Specter of Communism: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1917-1953 (Hill and Wang, 1994); and author, The Elusive Quest: America’s Pursuit of European Stability and French Security, 1919-1933 (University of North Carolina Press, 1979).
In addition to book awards, Leffler has received other recognitions during his career. In 2014, the University of Virginia gave him its Thomas Jefferson Award for excellence in scholarship. The Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations honored him in 2012 with its Laura and Norman Graebner Award for lifetime achievement and service. Leffler has also been the recipient of several prestigious fellowships.
Regarding professional service, Leffler has been on advisory committees to the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency, especially concerning the declassification of secret documents. In 1993, he served as president of the Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations.
Leffler earned his Ph.D. in history at The Ohio State University. After teaching at Vanderbilt University from 1972 to 1986, he moved to the history department at the University of Virginia. In the early 1990s, he served as history department chair at UVA, followed by a term as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. He was a visiting professor at England’s Oxford University in 2002-2003 and Cambridge University 2006-2007.