Walter LaFeber is the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor Emeritus and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow at Cornell University. He served as the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of American History from 1968 to 2001. He has published on post-1750 American foreign relations, including authoring or co-authoring nearly 20 books and several articles and newspaper op-ed pieces, notably in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Newsday. His most recent book, The Clash: U.S. Relations with Japan from the 1850s to the Present, received the Bancroft Prize and the Ellis Hawley Prize. It is hailed as "the best history of U.S.-Japanese relations in any language.” LaFeber is highly regarded among his colleagues, and many historians and students of history have been influenced by his contributions to the field. He is past president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has also served on numerous scholarly editorial boards and the Advisory Committee to the Historical Division of the Department of State. He has appeared on Walter Cronkite's "American Presidencies, "PBS-TV's "American Experiences," and BBC-TV's "End of the Cold War." (Kevin Stearns/Cornell University Photography)
Test Prep Network’s Scott Mercer interviewed Professor LaFeber regarding his book The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion 1860-1898 .