History And Policy

Event Series:

Tuesday, January 26, 2016 - 4:00pm-5:30pm (ended)

223 Moses Hall

Dr. Francis J. Gavin, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Francis J. Gavin is the first Frank Stanton Chair in Nuclear Security Policy studies and Professor of Political Science at MIT. He will speak on the topic History and Policy: Can a deeper understanding of the past improve policymaking, and if so, how? I contend that a “historical sensibility” – a familiarity with the past and its powerful and often unpredictable rhythms – can be a powerful tool to understand and aid making foreign, foreign economic, and national security policy. A historical sensibility is less a method (as the term is understood by social scientists) than a practice, a mental awareness, a discernment, a responsiveness to the past and how it unfolded into our present world. Developing this sensibility can provide many benefits and insights, including humility, prudence, and a sensitivity to the challenges of making decisions when confronting complexity and facing radical uncertainty about the future.

Before joining MIT, Francis J. Gavin was the Tom Slick Professor of International Affairs and the Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. From 2005 until 2010, he directed The American Assembly’s multiyear, national initiative, The Next Generation Project: U.S. Global Policy and the Future of International Institutions. He is the author of Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958-1971 (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) and Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age (Cornell University Press, 2012).

Gavin received a Ph.D. and M.A. in Diplomatic History from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Studies in Modern European History from Oxford University, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He has been a National Security Fellow at Harvard’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, an International Security Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, a Research Fellow at the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, a Smith Richardson Junior Faculty Fellow in International Security and Foreign Policy, a Donald D. Harrington Distinguished Faculty Fellow at the University of Texas, a Senior Research Fellow at the Nobel Institute, and an Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar. Gavin is an Associate of the Managing the Atom Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, Senior Fellow of the Clements Program in History, Strategy, and Statecraft, a Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center, an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC, a Senior Advisor to the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and a life-member of the Council on Foreign Relations.