Kathryn C. Lavelle's "Reluctant Conquest"

Kathryn C. Lavelle is the Ellen and Dixon Long Professor of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University and the author of The Challenges of Multilateralism. She has been a congressional fellow and a residential fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

Lavelle applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, Reluctant Conquest: American Wealth, Power, and Science in the Arctic, and reported the following:

Reluctant Conquest fails the Page 99 Test. Hopefully, however, it does not fail the entire “Pages 1-269” Course! If someone browsing the book opened it to page 99, they would find an examination of American foreign policy as it changed early in the Cold War. The page summarizes how during the early years of the Cold War, the American government was revamping itself in order to address its new role in the world following World War II. All of these changes would affect Arctic affairs, beginning with the country’s physical presence on the ground and its bilateral relations with other countries in the region, chiefly Greenland, Iceland, and Norway.

Although it is not the best single page to introduce the book, page 99 does demonstrate the book’s overarching effort to situate Arctic strategy within the arc of broader American foreign policy throughout U.S. history. That is, what factors explain the way the U.S. acts and how do the pieces of economics and science fit within overall national interests? To do this, each section draws direct ties to broader events, isolationism, and internationalism and the efforts of Indigenous peoples within a political system they did not create, but have had to work within.

Most other examinations of U.S. foreign policy in the Arctic focus on one or another aspect of this history. Many present detailed histories of Alaska. While they are valuable, Reluctant Conquest is the first comprehensive study that integrates developments in science, commerce, and military affairs. The Arctic is an area that is experiencing dramatic environmental change as well as global political realignments. This book aims to give scholars, policymakers, and general readers an understanding of how the elements have fit together time so that they will be better equipped to evaluate events as they progress in the future.

Learn more about Reluctant Conquest at the Yale University Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue