Alexander DeConde (November 13, 1920, in Utica, New York – May 28, 2016, in Goleta, California) was a historian of United States diplomatic history. Raised in California, he attended

San Francisco State College San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...

for his B.A. Following graduation in 1943, he attended the U.S. Naval Reserve Midshipmen School in Chicago, IL. He was assigned to the destroyer tender U.S.S. Whitney (AD-4), and was released from service in 1946. He received his M.A. (1947) and Ph.D (1949) from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

,"De Conde, Alexander," in ''Historians of Latin America in the United States, 1965: Biobibliographies of 680 Specialists''. Ed. Howard F. Cline. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1966, 26. where he worked under the direction of

Thomas A. Bailey Thomas Andrew Bailey (December 14, 1902 – July 26, 1983) was a professor of history at his alma mater, Stanford University, and wrote many historical monographs on diplomatic history, including the widely used American history textbook, ''Th ...

. He taught at Stanford (1947-48), Whittier College (1948-52), and

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

(1952-57). From 1957 to 1961, he was a professor of history at the University of Michigan. He subsequently joined the history department at the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he remained until his retirement in 1991. He helped to establish the

Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) was founded in order to “promote excellence in research and teaching of American foreign relations history and to facilitate professional collaboration among scholars and students ...

together with Joseph P. O'Grady of LaSalle College (Philadelphia) and David M. Pletcher of Indiana University. DeConde served as the Society’s second president and remained actively involved in the organization for the rest of his career. He also held elected and committee roles in the Organization of American History, and served as vice president and president of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association.

Honors and awards

*1959 Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Foundation fellows entry, *1988 Inaugural recipient of SHAFR’s Norman and Laura Graebner Award for lifetime achievement *Fulbright *1951 Social Science Research Council *American Philosophical Society

References

Bibliography

*''Herbert Hoover's Latin-American Policy'' (Stanford University Press, 1951) *"Is China a Great Power?" United States Naval Institute ''Proceedings'' Vol 79, Issue 1 (January 1953): 599. *''Isolation and Security: Ideas and Interests in Twentieth-Century American Foreign Policy'' (Duke University Press, 1957) *''Entangling Alliance: Politics & Diplomacy Under George Washington'' (Duke University Press, 1958) *''The American Secretary of State: An Interpretation'' (Praeger, 1962) *''A History of American Foreign Policy'' (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963) (second edition, 1971) (third edition, 1978, two volumes) *''The Quasi War: The Politics & Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797-1801'' (Scribners, 1966) *''Half Bitter, Half Sweet: An Excursion into Italian-American History'' (Scribners, 1971) *''Student Activism: Town and Gown in Historical Perspective'' (Scribners, 1971) *''This Affair of Louisiana'' (Scribners, 1976) *''Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy: Studies of the Principal Movements and Ideas'' (editor, 36 editions published between 1978 and 2002) *''Gun Violence in America: The Struggle for Control'' (Northeastern University Press, 2001) *''Presidential Machismo: Executive Authority, Military Intervention, and Foreign Relations'' (Northeastern University Press, 2002) {{DEFAULTSORT:Deconde, Alexander Stanford University alumni Historians of the United States 1920 births Writers from Utica, New York San Francisco State University alumni University of Michigan faculty University of California, Santa Barbara faculty 2016 deaths United States Navy personnel of World War II Presidents of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations