Goldstein Gives Talk on U.S. Entry into WWI
Erik Goldstein, Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, spoke at an April 20, 2017 lecture hosted by the Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at the Union Club of Boston.
Goldstein’s lecture, entitled “Naval Rivalry and the Road to the Great War,” explored how the United States came to intervene in World War I. Fittingly, this month marks the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into WWI.
Goldstein argued that maritime and naval issues are key to understanding America’s entry into the war. Two decades earlier, a naval conflict, the Spanish-American War of 1898, had launched the U.S. onto the world stage; America’s subsequent rise to great-power status took place in the context of an international naval arms race in which Germany sought to undermine British supremacy while France, Russia, Japan, and the United States, among other state players, all jockeyed for advantage.
Goldstein’s research interests include diplomacy, formulation of national diplomatic strategies, the origins and resolution of armed conflict, and negotiation. He has published in numerous journals, including Middle Eastern Studies, Review of International Relations, East European Quarterly, Historical Research, Historical Journal, Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, and the Hague Journal of Diplomacy.