David S. Painter

David S. Painter (born 1948) is an associate professor of international history at Georgetown University. He is a leading scholar^[1] of the Cold War and United States foreign policy during the 20th century, with particular emphasis on their relation to oil.

Education and career

Painter studied history at King College (BA 1970), Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar (BA 1973), and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (PhD 1982).^[2] In addition to his career in academia, Painter has worked for the Congressional Research Service, the Department of Energy, and the State Department.^[2] In 2008, he was a visiting fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute.^[2] He also serves on the advisory board for H-Energy.^[3]

Work

Painter's classic work has turned out to be his very first book: Oil and the American Century, published in 1986. Influenced by the work of Ellis Hawley and others,^[4] and operating within a corporatist framework,^[5] the study is an "impressively researched monograph that devotes particular attention to the close collaboration between public policy makers and oil company official,"^[6] a partnership that led to "the evolution of an American foreign oil policy that protected dwindling American domestic reserves, met American security needs, and guaranteed American access to foreign oil."^[7] One historian opined that, "if anything proves more remarkable than the ambitious scope of this study, it is the extent to which Painter accomplishes his objectives. [… It] may also be the most important book yet written on America's foreign oil policy."^[8] Others described it variously as "exemplary"^[9] and "superb".^[10] The 1987 UK edition has not been out of print since its original publication.^[11]

Painter's 1999 history of the Cold War was described as an "excellent",^[12] a book that "presents a very good analysis of the end of the Cold War, emphasizing the economic weakness of the Soviet Union and the strains of the arms race upon the Soviet economy."^[13]

Selected publications

Books and case studies

• Origins of the Cold War: An International History (2nd ed.). New York & London: Routledge. 2005. ISBN 978-0-415-34109-7. (Co-editor with Melvyn P. Leffler).
• The Cold War: An International History. London: Routledge. 1999. ISBN 978-0-415-19446-4.
• The United States, Great Britain, and Mossadegh (PDF). Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. 1993. ISBN 1-56927-332-4.
• Deciding Germany's Future, 1943–1945. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. 1989. ISBN 1-56927-323-5.
• The German Question and the Cold War. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. 1988. ISBN 1-56927-415-0.
• Allied Relations in Iran: 1941–1945. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. 1986. ISBN 1-56927-425-8.
• Oil and the American Century: The Political Economy of US Foreign Oil Policy, 1941–1954. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 1986. ISBN 978-0-801-82693-1.
  Published in the UK as Private Power and Public Policy: Multinational Oil Corporations and United States Foreign Policy, 1941–54. London: I.B.Tauris. 1987. ISBN 978-1-850-43021-6.

Articles and book chapters

• "Oil and the American Century" (PDF). The Journal of American History 99 (1): 24–39. 2012. doi:10.1093/jahist/jas073.
• "Oil, resources, and the Cold War, 1945–62". In Melvyn P. Leffler & Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume I: Origins (pp. 486–507). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-521-83719-4.
• "The Global Environmental Footprint of the U.S. Military, 1789–2003". In Charles E. Closmann, ed., War and the Environment: Military Destruction in the Modern Age (pp. 20–24). College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press. 2009. ISBN 978-1-603-44115-5. (Co-author with J. R. McNeill).
• "The Marshall Plan and Oil". Cold War History 9 (2): 159–175. 2009. doi:10.1080/14682740902871851.
• "A Partial History of the Cold War". Cold War History 6 (4): 527–534. 2006. doi:10.1080/14682740600979295.
• "Markets, Technology, and U.S. Foreign Policy". Diplomatic History 29 (2): 387–391. 2005. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2005.00489.x.
• "The End of the Cold War". In Jean-Christophe Agnew & Roy Rosenzweig, eds., A Companion to Post-1945 America (pp. 479–500). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. 2002. ISBN 978-0-631-22325-2. (Co-author with Thomas Blanton).
• "Explaining US Relations with the Third World". Diplomatic History 19 (3): 525–548. 1995. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1995.tb00648.x.
• "Oil and World Power". Diplomatic History 17 (1): 159–170. 1993. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1993.tb00167.x.
• "International Oil and National Security". Daedalus 120 (4): 183–206. 1991. JSTOR 20025409.
• "Oil and the Marshall Plan". Business History Review 58 (3): 359–383. 1984. JSTOR 3114553.

Notes

1. The description is that applied by Cambridge University Press to the contributors to its three-volume history of the Cold War; Painter 2010 appears in Volume I.
2. "Georgetown People: David S. Painter". georgetown.edu. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
3. "H-Net profile: David S. Painter". H-Net. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
4. Giebelhaus 1987, pp. 770–1.
5. DeNovo 1987, p. 315.
6. Hogan 1990, p. 158.
7. Qaim-Maqami 1986, p. 1104.
8. McMahon 1987, p. 1071.
9. Gardner 1987, p. 123.
10. Kolko 1990, p. 631.
11. "Private Power and Public Policy". ibtauris.com. Retrieved 1 April 2013.
12. Rogers 2002, p. 167.
13. Boyle 2000, p. 486

References

Boyle, Peter G. (2000). "Review Article: The Cold War Revisited". Journal of Contemporary History 35 (3): 479–489. doi:10.1177/002200940003500309. JSTOR 261032.

DeNovo, John A. (1987). "Review: Oil and the American Century by David S. Painter". Middle East Journal 41 (2): 314–315. JSTOR 4327573.

Gardner, Lloyd (1987). "Review: Oil and the American Century by David S. Painter". International History Review 9 (1): 123–126. JSTOR 40105706.

Giebelhaus, August W. (1987). "Review: Oil and the American Century by David S. Painter". The American Historical Review 92 (3): 770–771. JSTOR 1870099.

Hogan, Michael J. (1990). "Corporatism". The Journal of American History 77 (1): 153–160. JSTOR 2078647.

Kolko, Gabriel (1990) [1968]. The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943–1945. New York, NY: Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-72757-6.

McMahon, Robert J. (1987). "Review: Oil and the American Century by David S. Painter". The Journal of American History 73 (4): 1070–1071. JSTOR 1904143.

Qaim-Maqami, Linda (1986). "Review: Oil and the American Century by David S. Painter". The Journal of Economic History 46 (4): 1104–1105. doi:10.1017/s0022050700051202. JSTOR 2121871.

Rogers, Paul (2002). "Review: The Cold War: An International History by David S. Painter". The Slavonic and East European Review 80 (1): 167–168. JSTOR 4213414.

External links

• Painter's staff page on Georgetown's website
• Painter's H-Net profile