Davies,John Paton,Jr.,China Hand: An Autobiography

John Paton Davies's story is familiar to students of China-U.S.relations.Born to missionary parents in Sichuan,Davies joined the Foreign Service in 1931 after his itinerant undergraduate years.Through language training in Beijing and postings in Kunming,Shenyang,and Hankou,Davies built a reputation as one of the State Department's most capable China hands.When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor,he was working at State's Far Eastern Affairs desk.Eager to return to China—or just get out of Washington—Davies urged Major General Joseph Stilwell,who was rumoured to be leading an American military mission to Chongqing,to take him along.Davies got his wish a few months later and spent most of the wartime in China as Stilwell's civilian aid.After the war,Davies,who had predicted that Mao Zedong's Communists would triumph over Jiang Jieshi's Nationalists once the Japanese surrendered,became a target of Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist accusations.Secretary of State John Foster Dulles fired him in 1954 after his ninth appearance before the State Department's Loyalty Security Board.Disgusted with the politics in America,Davies and his family left the country and lived many years in Peru.Though he returned to America in the 1960s and wrote on foreign affairs,Davies never again served in government.     

BUSINESS AND THE NORDIC WELFARE STATES, 1890-1970

Social scientists have, since the 1990s, shown an increasing interest in the role of business actors in welfare state development, and these debates provide many opportunities for historians of the Nordic countries to contribute with their insights and findings. This special issue brings together six historical studies on the role of business in the development of the welfare states in the Nordic countries, including the role of firms as providers of company welfare as well as the activities of firms and of business interest groups to influence policies and public opinion. Two observations stand out. First, the contributions draw a picture of a gradual shift in this period from that of fundamental opposition, which often dominated up to the mid-20th century, to a more pragmatic approach of cooperation. Cooperation in policy-making co-existed with confrontation in public debate, in which business interest groups promoted alternatives to ‘big government’. Second, these studies underline the value of paying attention to what Reinhart Koselleck called ‘horizons of expectations’. These historical studies show how the vocabulary of the actors changed in this period, and how business interest groups not only influenced political decisions but also adapted their expectations to changes in the political context.     

1958至1960年艾森豪威尔政府对印尼的“双轨政策”

1958—1960年,艾森豪威尔政府确立了同时与苏加诺以及印尼陆军发展关系的“双轨”政策。该政策是美国对印尼政策演变的一个重要环节,奠定了美国对苏加诺政权政策的基础。双轨政策是在意识到美国对印尼政策目标和政策手段有限、美印(尼)关系具有较强不确定性和较多制约性因素的背景下制定的,带有浓厚的过渡色彩。双轨政策的确立,标志着美国开始调整与印尼民族主义的关系。美国对印尼政策的重点由促使印尼走上与西方联合、共同反共的道路,转向了利用印尼民族主义,抑制印尼共,阻止印尼与东方阵营的联合。     

Eisenhower and Castro: US-Cuban relations, 1958-60

Books reviewed in this article:
United States Government Printing Office, Foreign Relations of the United States 1958-1960, Vol. V. American Republics
United States Government Printing Office, Foreign Relations of the United States 1958-1960, Vol. VI. Cuba