In a lecture at the Library of Congress on May 7, Bradford A. Lee, the Kissinger Chair at the John W. Kluge Center, will analyze how the United States waged war and negotiated peace from 1917 to 1919 and will discuss whether the American military intervention in the First World War was worth the cost.

Lee will deliver his final lecture as the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at 4 p.m. on Thursday, May 7, in room 119 on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C. The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not needed.

Lee began his tenure at the Library’s Kluge Center in November 2014. During his residency, he has researched a book examining the results and costs of American military intervention in the 20th and early 21st centuries. His book tackles the question of whether the immense American strategic exertions in the First World War, the Second World War, the Cold War, and what Lee calls “the Wars of the Muslim Rimland since 1979” have produced constructive political results for the United States and the international community—results that were worth the destruction generated and the enormous costs incurred by the United States and its citizens.

Lee’s research at the Library of Congress has been based on a wide array of primary sources about the decisions made by American leaders. He has worked with the personal papers of policymakers, senior military leaders and diplomats held in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, in addition to books in the Library’s general collections. His research will inform his lecture and his critical analysis of how the United States waged war and negotiated peace from 1917 to 1919.

Lee is the Philip A. Crowl Professor Emeritus of Comparative Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He is an accomplished scholar of foreign policy, military strategy and international relations. Lee’s prior publications include a book of essays, "Strategic Logic and Political Rationality," which he co-edited with Karl Walling and to which he contributed an analysis of strategic challenges that the United States has experienced in terminating its wars in a manner that produces durable political results; a chapter tracing "American Grand Strategy and the Unfolding of the Cold War, 1945-1961" in the book "Successful Strategies: Triumphing in War and Peace from Antiquity to the Present," edited by Williamson Murray and Richard Hart Sinnreich; and an essay on "Strategic Interaction: Theory and History for Practitioners," for the book "Competitive Strategies for the 21st Century," edited by Thomas G. Mahnken.

Prior to his professorship at the U.S. Naval War College, Lee was an associate professor at Harvard University, teaching the modern international history of the United States, Europe and East Asia. He was educated at Yale University, where he was a scholar-athlete, at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, where he received his Ph.D. in history, and at Harvard University, where was a Junior Fellow in the prestigious Society of Fellows.

The Kissinger Chair is a distinguished senior research position; its holder is in residence at the Library for a period of up to 10 months. Using research facilities and services at the Library of Congress, the scholar is expected to engage in research on foreign policy and international affairs that will lead to publication. The annual appointment of the Kissinger scholar is made by the Librarian of Congress upon the recommendation of a selection committee consisting of representatives from the academic community and foreign-policy experts. The appointment ensures that the subject of foreign affairs, taken broadly, receives reflective and considered treatment each year in Washington, D.C., by distinguished, experienced scholars and practitioners.

Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world's best thinkers to stimulate and energize one another, to distill wisdom from the Library's rich resources, and to interact with policymakers in Washington. For more information about the Kluge Center visit www.loc.gov/kluge/.

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