Ronald Steel Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

The Wilsonian Agenda in U.S. Foreign Policy: Conversation with Ronald Steel, Professor of International Relations, USC, March 1, 2004, by Harry Kreisler

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Background

Ron, welcome to Berkeley.

Thank you.

Where you were born and raised?

Just outside Chicago.

Looking back, how do you think your parents shaped your thinking about the world?

I'm not sure they did, because I'm not aware of ever having a discussion about foreign policy when I was a kid. When I went to college, I thought I was going to be an English major.

I see.

But my father didn't. He thought I should be a lawyer. I ended up being neither. I just got very interested and I had proselytizing professors who interested me in the topic.

In college?

In college, yes.

Where did you do your undergraduate work?

I was at Northwestern.

Any professor whose name sticks out in your mind?

Well, I'll tell you, I had two wonderful professors in political science. One was Roy Macridis and the other was Allen Whiting, who is now retired at the University of Arizona. I had another great teacher -- I was a double major, in English, too -- who was Richard Ellman, who was a Joyce scholar.

So did you start out as a writer?

Pretty early on, yes. After college, I went in the army, and then I was in the Foreign Service of the U.S. for a couple years, and decided I wasn't diplomatic enough to be a diplomat. I worked in Congress for a bit, and then I went to work in New York as a writer. I had been to graduate school, also. But I decided I wanted to get more into the world, so I went to New York. I worked at a magazine for several years, and then I got involved in a big book project, which was my book on Walter Lippmann, and then that got me back into academia again, where I've been ever since.

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