Robert J. McMahon explained

Dr. Robert McMahon
Nationality:	American
Discipline:	International Relations
Work Institutions:	University of Florida Ohio State University
Education:	Fairfield University (BA) University of Connecticut (PhD)

Robert J. McMahon (born 1949) is an American historian of the foreign relations of the United States and a scholar of the Cold War. He currently holds the chair of Ralph D. Mershon Distinguished Professor at Ohio State University.

Career

McMahon received his B.A. from Fairfield University in 1971 and PhD from the University of Connecticut in 1977. He taught at the University of Florida from 1982 to 2005, when he moved to Ohio State University.^[1] He has held visiting positions at the University of Virginia and University College Dublin. McMahon holds a joint appointment with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at OSU.

McMahon served as 2001 president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.^[2]

Reception

The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan

Noel H Pugach from the University of New Mexico, in Pacific Historical Review, calls the book an "excellent monograph" tracing the US-India-Pakistan relationship and a "solid and sound study". Pugach observes that McMahon has "exhaustively" researched primary sources from the United States and comments that the book will serve as a model reference point for studies of US-Third World relations during the Cold War.^[3]

According to Kenton J. Clymer from the University of Texas in The American Historical Review it is a "superb" study of the relations between the US, India and Pakistan, which makes use of the best available archival documents. Clymer calls it an excellent work which will be a "definitive account" of American policy in South Asia during the Cold War.^[4]

Richard Ned Lebow in The American Political Science Review calls it a "careful historical study"^[5] while Rafique Kawthari notes in Current History that the professor of history, Robert McMahon, has relied mainly on recently declassified documents and calls the historical study timely.^[6] Warren I. Cohen, from the University of Maryland's Department of History, states in Reviews in American History that Robert McMahon had already established himself as one of the best diplomatic historians and this "magnificent" book delivers "far more than its title promises". Cohen further comments that McMahon has written the best book on American relations with South Asia during the 1945-1965 period.^[7]

Works

Books

• Book: The Cold War in the Third World . New York, NY . . 2013 . 978-0-199-76868-4 . Editor.
• Book: Guide to U.S. Foreign Policy: A Diplomatic History . Washington, DC . . 2012 . 978-1-608-71910-5. Co-editor with Thomas W. Zeiler
• Book: Dean Acheson and the Creation of an American World Order . Dulles, VA . . 2008 . 978-1-574-88927-7.
• Book: Major Problems in History of Vietnam War. 4th ed . Boston, MA . . 2007 . 978-0-618-749379.
• Book: The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford . Oxford University Press . 2003 . 978-0-192-80178-4 . Editor.
• Book: The Limits of Empire: The United States and Southeast Asia since World War II . New York, NY . . 1999 . 978-0-231-10880-5.
• Book: The Origins of the Cold War. 4th ed . Boston, MA . Houghton Mifflin . 1998 . 978-0-395-90430-5. Co-author with Thomas G. Paterson.
• Book: The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan . New York, NY . Columbia University Press . 1994 . 978-0-231-08226-6 .
• Book: Colonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945–49 . Ithaca, NY . . 1981 . 978-0-801-47717-1 .

Articles and chapters

• Book: US national security policy from Eisenhower to Kennedy . http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~theed/Cold_War/y%20Cambridge%20CW%20vol%201/Ch%2014%20US%20national%20security%20policy%20from%20Eisenhower%20to%20Kennedy%20288.pdf . In Melvyn P. Leffler & Odd Arne Westad, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume I: Origins (pp. 288–311) . 25 March 2010 . Cambridge . Cambridge University Press, 2010 . 978-0-521-83719-4 . .
• The Politics, and Geopolitics, of American Troop Withdrawals from Vietnam, 1968–1972 . . 34 . 3 . 471–483 . 2010 . 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2010.00862.x . McMahon . Robert J. .
• U.S. Policy toward South Asia and Tibet during the Early Cold War . . 8 . 3 . 131–144 . 2006 . 10.1162/jcws.2006.8.3.131 . McMahon . Robert J. . 57560380 .
• Book: The Point of No Return: The Eisenhower Administration and Indonesia, 1953–1960 . In Kathryn C. Statler & Andrew L. Johns, eds., The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War (pp. 75–100) . Lanham, MD . . 2006 . 978-0-742-55381-1 .
• Diplomatic History and Policy History: Finding Common Ground . . 17 . 1 . 93–109 . 2005 . 10.1353/jph.2005.0005 . McMahon . Robert J. . 154275441 .
• Contested Memory: The Vietnam War and American Society, 1975–2001 . Diplomatic History . 26 . 2 . 159–184 . 2002 . 10.1111/1467-7709.00306. McMahon . Robert . free .
• Book: Introduction: The Challenge of the Third World . https://web.archive.org/web/20131205081326/https://ohiostatepress.org/Books/Complete%20PDFs/Hahn%20Empire/02.pdf . In Peter L. Hahn & Mary Ann Heiss, eds., Empire and Revolution: The United States and the Third World since 1945 (pp. 1–14) . Columbus, OH . . 2001 . 978-0-814-20856-4 . registration .
• Cultures of Empire . . 88 . 3 . 888–892 . 2001 . 2700390 . McMahon . Robert J. . 10.2307/2700390 .
• The Illusion of Vulnerability: American Reassessments of the Soviet Threat, 1955–1956 . The International History Review . 18 . 3 . 591–619 . 1996 . 40107497 . 10.1080/07075332.1996.9640755. McMahon . Robert J. .
• The Study of American Foreign Relations: National History or International History? . Diplomatic History . 14 . 4 . 554–564 . 1990 . 10.1111/j.1467-7709.1990.tb00108.x . McMahon . Robert J. .
• United States Cold War Strategy in South Asia: Making a Military Commitment to Pakistan, 1947–1954 . Journal of American History . 75 . 3 . 812–840 . 1988 . 1901531 . McMahon . Robert J. . 10.2307/1901531 .
• Eisenhower and Third World Nationalism: A Critique of the Revisionists . . 101 . 3 . 453–473 . 1986 . 2151625 . McMahon . Robert J. . 10.2307/2151625 .

External links

• Robert J. McMahon Ohio State University Department of History
• "Turning Point: the Vietnam War's Pivotal Years", McMahon's lecture for the OAH Distinguished Lectureship Program

Notes and References

1. Web site: Robert J. McMahon . . 30 November 2013 .
2. Web site: Past Presidents of SHAFR . . 24 November 2013 .
3. Pugach. Noel. The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States. India. And Pakistan - Book Review. Pacific Historical Review. August 1995. 64. 3. 463–464. 10.2307/3641032. 3641032 .
4. Clymer. Kenton. The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan - Book Review. The American Historical Review. April 1995. 100. 2. 494–495. 10.2307/2169027. 2169027 .
5. Lebow. Richard Ned. The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan - Book Review. The American Political Science Review. September 1997. 91. 3. 705–709. 10.2307/2952086. 2952086 . 146976549 .
6. Kawthari. Rafique. The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan - Book Review. Current History. December 1994. 93. 587. 440.
7. Cohen. Warren. The Cold War on the Periphery: The United States, India, and Pakistan - Book Review. Reviews in American History. December 1994. 22. 4. 705–710. 10.2307/2702823 . 2702823 .