Papers by Stephen Schuker
American "Reparations" to Germany 1919-1933
Origins of the "Jewish Problem" in the Later Third Republic
Hostages of Modernization, 1, Germany - Great Britain - France
The Rhineland Question: West European Security at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919
A Reassessment after 75 Years
Selected Letters of R. C. Leffingwell. Edited by Edward Pulling. Oyster Bay, New York, Exposition Press, 1979. Pp. 185. Privately printed
Business History Review, 1980
man, and purchased control of the Northern Pacific. Villard hurried the transcontinental main lin... more man, and purchased control of the Northern Pacific. Villard hurried the transcontinental main line and some important branches to completion regardless of cost. This left the railroad with a floating debt of $8,000,000, which he managed to cover by the sale of additional bonds. Very shortly thereafter, he had to announce that the company had lost $1,677,168 in the second half of 1883, and for this the directors forced his resignation. While self-exiled to his homeland, Villard again peddled American railroad securities to German purchasers. In 1886-1890 his total sales of $64,373,000 were between one-fourth and one-third of all German capital invested in the United States during that period. Villard, again in America, drove through the merger of Thomas Edison's various electrical companies into a single corporation and organized a German syndicate to control it. When he tried to engulf the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, it managed instead to swallow his organization and created General Electric. Villard more than anybody else rallied the GermanAmerican vote that helped sweep Cleveland to his second victory as a presidential candidate. The financier was nearly retired after 1893 and died in 1900. Villard made his millions, Dietrich Buss concludes, by his great success as an international entrepreneur who understood America and Germany. Trusted in both societies as a man of integrity, he had an unusual ability to interest financiers in his enterprises and secure their money. He strove to eliminate competition by consolidations. His financial maneuvers were often brilliant and enriched him, but sometimes not those who trusted him. He showed little interest in the detailed operation of his business corporations, leaving this to subordinates; the net result was a mediocre record in management. Buss has successfully written a business monograph emphasizing how Villard functioned across the Atlantic. It is firmly based upon the Villard Papers. The study is thorough, well-organized, clearly expressed, and compactly written. Its judicious conclusions are in accord with the evidence presented.
1939: The Making of the Second World War
The American Historical Review, 1976
This is an account of the period leading up to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939, in ... more This is an account of the period leading up to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939, in which Aster draws extensively on British government papers and other archival collections and primary sources to reconstruct an objective analysis of events.
American 'Reparations' to Germany, 1919-33. Princeton Studies in International Finance, No. 61
Germany paid no net reparations to the Allies, 1919-33. The American capital flow to Germany, fir... more Germany paid no net reparations to the Allies, 1919-33. The American capital flow to Germany, first through financial assets devalued in the hyperinflation, and then through loans subsequently repudiated, provided a net capital flow (in excess of reparations) equal to 2.1% of German national income for the period 1919-31.
Woodrow Wilson and World War I: A Burden Too Great to Bear. By Richard Striner. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. 290 pp
Presidential Studies Quarterly, 2015
Woodrow Wilson and World War I: A Burden Too Great to Bear. By Richard Striner. Lanham, MD: Rowma... more Woodrow Wilson and World War I: A Burden Too Great to Bear. By Richard Striner. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. 290 pp. Richard Striner considers Woodrow Wilson the worst wartime president ever to straddle a pot. Striner has previously written on Lincoln, whom he praised for combining moral idealism with strategic cunning (see, e.g., Lincoln and Race [Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012]). Wilson, in his view, never understood the threat that a German victory in World War I would pose to national security. He neglected to prepare seriously for mobilization. And he failed to grasp how he could leverage American participation to achieve his diplomatic objectives. In seven hard-hitting chapters, each focused chronologically on one of the wartime or postwar years, Striner flays Wilson's "miserable judgment," managerial incompetence, "naive suppositions," disdain for Congress, unsystematic work habits, as well as such character flaws as petulance and grandiosity. Even Wilson's rhetoric leaves the author cold. He echoes H. L. Mencken's description of its "ideational hollowness, its ludicrous strutting and bombast, its heavy dependence upon greasy and meaningless words, its frequent descents into mere sound and fury" (pp. 240-41). Striner bases his interpretation on a close reading of the inclusive 69-volume Papers of Woodrow Wilson (A. S. Link, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, 1856-1924, vols. 1-69 [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1966-94]). He does not engage Wilson's numerous hagiographers, except for John Milton Cooper, Jr., whom he uses as a foil (Woodrow Wilson: A Biography [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009]). Scholars who revere Wilson as the model for American missionary idealism and humanitarian interventionism in our own day will find Striner's formulations heavyhanded and ungenerous. Still, the author has marshaled some arresting evidence that previous analysts preferred to overlook out of respect for the president's noble motives. Where others have portrayed Wilson as a resourceful defender of neutral rights through 1917, Striner depicts him as prey to confused emotions and as reactive rather than strategic in approaching substantive issues. Moved by Christian piety and a conviction that he alone represented the silent mass of mankind, Wilson not only advocated peace without victory, but also felt that "white civilization" depended on preserving neutrality (p. 98). He pursued wholly unrealistic efforts at mediation and in December 1916 almost embroiled the country with England until Secretary of State Robert Lansing toned down his proposed note. Colonel Edward M. House and Lansing figure in this narrative as sensible men who kept Wilson's mania within bounds, quite opposite to Cooper's description of Lansing's "dastardly act of duplicity" (p. …
France and the Remilitarization of the Rhineland, 1936
French Historical Studies, 1986
... Jr. (New York, 1966), 244-68; Michael I. Handel, The Diplomacy of Surprise: Hitler, Nixon, an... more ... Jr. (New York, 1966), 244-68; Michael I. Handel, The Diplomacy of Surprise: Hitler, Nixon, and Sadat (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 31-96; Charles Keserich, "The Popular Front and Page 2. 300 FRENCH HISTORICAL STUDIES ...
The World in Depression, 1929-1939
The American Historical Review, 1975
Review of Volker Berghahn. American Big Business in Britain and Germany in the Twentieth Century.... more Review of Volker Berghahn. American Big Business in Britain and Germany in the Twentieth Century. Journal of American History, Dec. 2016, 797-98.
Certains observateurs considerent toujours que !'opposition passionnee de John Maynard Keynes au ... more Certains observateurs considerent toujours que !'opposition passionnee de John Maynard Keynes au Traite de Versailles fut basee sur une analyse economique digne de foi ou au moins credible. Pourtant, tout au long des annees 1920, Keynes joua dans I' ombre un role hautement partisan dans le grand combat diplomatique se jouant alors sur !a question des reparations d'apres-guerre. I! suggera dans ses memoires n'avoir plus jamais eu !'occasion de rencontrer en tete-it-tete le banquier de Hambourg Carl Melchior apres le mois d'octobre 1919. Utilisant des sources allemandes restees jusque-la inexploitees par les principaux biographes de Keynes, cet article montre, tout au contraire, que Ia relation intime entre les deux hommes continua bien au-dela de cette date. Melchior introduisit Keynes dans les plus hauls cercles gouvernementaux du Reich. L'economiste britannique apporta son soutien a !'hyperinflation allemande de 1922-1923 pour des motifs politiques et contribua a !'elaboration de Ia grande note allemande sur les reparations de juin 1923.
INTELLIGENCE AND GRAND STRATEGY IN FRANCE, 1919-1940.
ANALYSIS OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE THIRD REPU... more INTELLIGENCE AND GRAND STRATEGY IN FRANCE, 1919-1940.
ANALYSIS OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.
Capital flows ran strongly from the United States toward Germany. Contrary to received opinion, ... more Capital flows ran strongly from the United States toward Germany. Contrary to received opinion, Germany paid no net reparations whatever throughout the Weimar Republic.
Genoa, Rapallo, and European Reconstruction in 1922, 1991
Reflections on the Cold War: A comment
Diplomacy & Statecraft, 2001
For mutually reinforcing cultural reasons, the study of international history at American univers... more For mutually reinforcing cultural reasons, the study of international history at American universities has declined. Nevertheless, opportunities for multinational research on the Cold War are greater than ever. Much innovative work takes place abroad or outside conventional history departments. This article appraises the contributions of three leading scholars in the field. It adumbrates the failure of the Roosevelt administration to formulate a coherent policy for postwar Germany and emphasizes the fitful process through which the Truman team despaired of accommodation with the USSR. It intimates that Marc Trachtenberg's elegant structural analysis may make that process seem clearer than the truth, and underscores the findings of Klaus Schwabe and Georges Soutou, who show that Europeans had their own concerns and did not view the Cold War through the optic of the bilateral Russian‐American relationship.
from French Historical Studies 14(3) 1986, pp. 299-339
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Papers by Stephen Schuker
ANALYSIS OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.
ANALYSIS OF THE COLLAPSE OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.