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In Democracy in Exile, Daniel Bessner explores the life of Hans Speier, one of the most significant figures in the history of US defense policy. Bessner traces Speier's intellectual development from Weimar Germany to the Cold War United States, revealing how his European roots shaped the expert-driven approach to foreign policymaking that American elites institutionalized during and after World War II. A key figure in a transatlantic network of émigré policymakers and analysts, Speier helped establish novel institutions like the RAND Corporation that transformed how US foreign policy was made. Democracy in Exile highlights how social scientists like Speier left academia to create a "military-intellectual complex" that insulated American decision-making from public opinion, and which continues to shape US defense policy today.
List of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Masses and Marxism in Weimar Germany
2. The Social Role of the Intellectual Exile
3. Public Opinion, Propaganda, and Democracy in Crisis
4. Psychological Warfare in Theory and Practice
5. The Making of a Defense Intellectual
6. The Adviser
7. The Institution Builder
8. Social Science and Its Discontents
Conclusion
Abbreviations
Archival and Source Abbreviations
Notes
Archives Cited
Index
About the author
Daniel Bessner
