The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) is the leading learned society for the academic study of the history of United States foreign policy.
Founded in 1967, SHAFR is best known for two activities. First, the society's journal, Diplomatic History, is generally regarded as the most prestigious journal in its field. Secondly, the society holds an annual conference each June. It generally alternates between Washington, D.C., and various other North American towns and cities with major universities. Recent hosts have included The University of Kansas (2006), The University of Texas at Austin (2004) and the University of Georgia (2002).
In 1986, Professor Betty Miller Unterberger of Texas A&M University became the first woman president of the organization, then 99 percent male in membership.
Famous quotes containing the words society, historians, american, foreign and/or relations:
“Modern children were considerably less innocent than parents and the larger society supposed, and postmodern children are less competent than their parents and the society as a whole would like to believe. . . . The perception of childhood competence has shifted much of the responsibility for child protection and security from parents and society to children themselves.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.”
—Eric J. Hobsbawm (b. 1917)
“All great religions, in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“I am ... willing to make it clear that American foreign policy must uphold the sanctity of international treaties. That is the cornerstone on which all relations between nations must rest.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (18821945)
“I want relations which are not purely personal, based on purely personal qualities; but relations based upon some unanimous accord in truth or belief, and a harmony of purpose, rather than of personality. I am weary of personality.... Let us be easy and impersonal, not forever fingering over our own souls, and the souls of our acquaintances, but trying to create a new life, a new common life, a new complete tree of life from the roots that are within us.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)