Democracy in Exile

<p><b>In </b><b><i>Democracy in Exile</i></b><b>, Daniel Bessner explores the life of Hans Speier, one of the most significant figures in the history of U.S. defense policy. </p><p></b>Bessner traces Speier's intellectual development from Weimar Germany to the Cold War United States, revealing how his European roots shaped the expert-driven approach to foreign policymaking that American elites institutionalized during and after World War II. A key figure in a transatlantic network of émigré policymakers and analysts, Speier helped establish novel institutions such as the RAND Corporation that transformed how US foreign policy was made.</p><p><i>Democracy in Exile</i> highlights how social scientists like Speier left academia to create a "military-intellectual complex" that insulated American decision making from public opinion and that continues to shape US defense policy today.</p>