America First? The History of an Idea
Christopher McKnight Nichols is Professor of History and Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies, Mershon Center for International Security Studies, at The Ohio State University. Nichols specializes in the history of the United States and its relationship to the rest of the world, and is also an expert on modern U.S. intellectual, political, and cultural history, from the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (1880-1920) through the present. An Andrew Carnegie Fellow and award-winning teacher and scholar, Nichols is author or editor of six books, including Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age, and his most recent (co-edited with David Milne), Ideology in U.S. Foreign Relations: New Histories.
Overview
In championing “America First” isolationism and protectionism, the Trump administration shifted the political mood toward selective U.S. engagement, where foreign commitments are limited to areas of vital U.S. interest and economic nationalism and unilateralism are the order of the day. The Biden Administration, in contrast, has rejected such a worldview as an aberration and proclaimed “America is back.” Yet the resurgence of the phrase — and even these ideas and policies — has been largely disconnected from historical context. What is that history? What are the key ideas embedded in “America First” and the longer tradition of isolationism? And why is it significant? In this course, Professor Nichols explains the origins, development, and central tenets of American isolationism. The talk traces the term “America First” to the late nineteenth century but will focus primarily on the rise of “America First” in the early 1940s and WWII. Overall, the presentation will illuminate how the seemingly hidden history of a constellation of ideas related to “America First” has endured and deepened over time with profound implications that shape present policies and debates.