About

I recently completed my PhD in United States History at the University of Colorado Boulder and I specialize in the moral dilemmas of U.S. foreign relations or what I call the moral fog of war.

My research and teaching focus on the history of the US in the world and the intersections of morality and grand strategy, national security, and US foreign policy. I study theories of Just War and military necessity as well as the lived experiences and decisions of leaders, strategists, soldiers, and ordinary men and women who wrestled with the moral uncertainty of diplomacy and war and made choices under fire. My work examines how people traversed moral minefields and grey zones -- how they negotiated the ethical dilemmas of total victory, unconditional surrender, strategic airpower, and the dichotomy of collaboration and resistance; how they accepted the Faustian Bargains of preventive war, anti-communism, and counter-terrorism; and how they grappled with the challenges of moral and historical judgment.

More generally, I am interested in the history of the Cold War, the Deep South and the American Civil War, the American Revolution, tyranny, charismatic figures, historical speeches and photographs, and international soccer/football.

My research has been supported by an Arts & Humanities dissertation fellowship, the Center for Humanities and the Arts, and the Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant Program at the University of Colorado Boulder as well as the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, the LBJ Foundation, and the Charles Koch Foundation. I have worked as an intern for the Latino History Project in Boulder County, as a brick-wall genealogist for Ancestry, and as a manuscript editor for two books on the American Civil War. I was also named a junior scholar with the International Policy Scholars Consortium and Network (IPSCON) at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). I hold an MA in social sciences from the University of Chicago and an Honors BA in history from the University of Utah.

When I’m not researching a deep rabbit hole, writing about Faustian Bargains in foreign policy, or creating PowerPoints, I pretend to be a world-class soccer player, pit my legs and lungs against the Rocky Mountains, and play real “house” with my children.

andrew.pace@colorado.edu

@AndrewOPace