Archibald Cary Coolidge

Archibald Cary Coolidge ( born March 6, 1866 in Boston, Massachusetts, † January 14, 1928 ) was an American diplomat and historian.

Coolidge came from a prominent Boston family, and studied at Harvard University history with the graduated summa cum laude, 1887. Moreover, he studied at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris, the University of Berlin and the University of Freiburg, where he became in 1892 a PhD ( Theoretical and foreign elements in the formation of the American constitution ). After that, he was instructor at Harvard, 1899 Assistant Professor and in 1908 Professor of History. He was also, from 1910, director of the Harvard University Library, and this expanded strongly.

In addition to his academic career, he was in the meantime before his professorship at Harvard again and again in the diplomatic service of the United States. 1890/91 he was secretary of the American Legation in St. Petersburg, in 1892 private secretary to the American ambassador in Paris and in 1893 secretary of the American Embassy in Vienna. Towards the end of the First World War, he belonged to the circle around Woodrow Wilson, was sent in 1918 by the Foreign Ministry to Russia and 1919 to Vienna ( Coolidge mission), to observe the political process and to report the U.S. delegates to the Paris Peace Conference. In 1921 he organized humanitarian aid to the battered by famine Russia.

As a historian, he focused on diplomatic history especially of the 19th century. One of his priorities was Russian history, he initiated and promoted but also historical research, especially in previously at Harvard and the U.S. neglected areas such as Turkey, Northern Europe, the Far East, Latin America and Slavic studies.

In 1906 he was a visiting professor in Paris and in Berlin in 1913. He was one of the founders of the Council on Foreign Relations and in 1922 was the first editor of the journal Foreign Affairs.

Writings

  • The United States as a World Power, Macmillan 1908 German Translation: The United States as a world power; a reflection on international politics, translated by Walter Lichtenstein, Mediator, Berlin 1908
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