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Grant Madsen

Publications

Sovereign Soldiers: How the U.S. Military Transformed the Global Economy after World War II

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Grant Madsen

They helped conquer the greatest armies ever assembled. Yet no sooner had they tasted victory after World War II than American generals suddenly found themselves governing their former enemies, devising domestic policy and making critical economic decisions for people they had just defeated in battle. In postwar Germany and Japan, this authority fell into the hands of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, along with a cadre of military officials like Lucius Clay and the Detroit banker Joseph Dodge.

In Sovereign Soldiers, Grant Madsen tells the story of how this cast of characters assumed an unfamiliar and often untold policymaking role. Seeking to avoid the harsh punishments meted out after World War I, military leaders believed they had to rebuild and rehabilitate their former enemies; if they failed they might cause an even deadlier World War III. Although they knew economic recovery would be critical in their effort, none was schooled in economics. Beyond their hopes, they managed to rebuild not only their former enemies but the entire western economy during the early Cold War.

Madsen shows how army leaders learned from the people they governed, drawing expertise that they ultimately brought back to the United States during the Eisenhower Administration in 1953. Sovereign Soldiers thus traces the circulation of economic ideas around the globe and back to the United States, with the American military at the helm.

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Journal Articles

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What’s in a Name?: The Growing Focus on Jesus Christ (by Name) since 2000 in General Conference Talks

President Russell M. Nelson emphasized in October 2018 General Conference that members should use the full name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reminding us that leaving out the Savior’s name diminishes His central role.
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Eisenhower, Dwight D

A article published in the Dictionary of American History, Supplement: America in the World, 1776 to the Present
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Policy History and Diplomatic History: Together at Last?

Ten years ago, Robert McMahon urged closer collaboration between diplomatic and policy historians, arguing that comparative and international perspectives could illuminate the connections between domestic and foreign policy. Since then, both fields have increasingly embraced international themes, with growing attention to empire, human rights, and the global dimensions of the American state.
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Africa, the Informal Economy, and the Hermeneutic Circle

We believe this chapter will motivate management and strategy scholars to examine the role of informal economic activity in the perpetuation of poverty in Africa and provide a starting point for developing the tools necessary to engage in research that creates a real and deep understanding of the contexts of poverty on the African continent.
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The International Origins of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Political Economy

This paper reassesses Dwight D. Eisenhower’s political economy, arguing that his views cannot be reduced to simple labels of “liberal” or “conservative.” By tracing his intellectual development from the New Deal through his governorship of postwar Germany to the presidency, it highlights how Eisenhower’s experiences with economic crisis, inflation, and democratic collapse shaped his effort to balance state responsibility with individual freedom.
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Becoming a State-in-the-World: Lessons Learned from the American Occupation of Germany

The American occupation of Germany after World War II marked a pivotal moment in the rise of the U.S. as a global hegemon, as military government shifted from relying on “despotic power” to projecting “infrastructural power” through state institutions. This pivot fostered German influence over institutional development, and encouraged creative policy reconstruction offering enduring lessons for America’s role in the world.
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Book Reviews

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Review: The Military and the Market

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Response: H-Diplo Roundtable XXI-40 on Madsen. Sovereign Soldiers: How the U.S. Military Transformed the Global Economy After World War II

Grant Madsen, William I. Hitchcock, Dayna Barnes, Stephen Bourque, Ronald W. Cox, and Mark R. Wilson comment and respond to comments about Sovereign Soldiers, Madsen's book.
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Review: A companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present

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Review: The Image and the Truth of the Eisenhower Years

In this review Madsen reviews two books: Liking Ike: Eisenhower, Advertising and the Rise of Celebrity Politics by David Haven Blake and The President and the Apprentice: Eisenhower and Nixon, 1952–1961 by Irwin F. Gellman.
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Review of Lori Clune, Executing the Rosenbergs

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Non-Professional Publications

“Opinion: The Constitution wasn’t made for partisan warriors” Deseret News, Sept 16, 2023

Conference Presentations

“Morality, Messaging, and Macroeconomics: Congressional Debate over Welfare, Inflation, and Taxes, 1970-1980,” Policy History Conference 2025 (Charlotte, North Carolina)

“Diplomatic History and Policy History: a Requiem for a failed Marriage?” Policy History Conference 2025 (Charlotte, North Carolina)

“A Digital Analysis of a Century of Cinema,” (with Blake Doty) Digital Humanities Utah 8 2024 (St. George, UT)

“Presidential Rhetoric: a Digital History Approach,” Policy History Conference 2023 (Columbus, OH)

“Presidential Morality: a Digital History Approach,” Digital Humanities Utah 7 2023 (Cedar City, UT)

“The 1970s: The Most Transitional Decade in Congress,” Policy History Conference 2022 (Tempe, AZ)

“What does Congress Care About?” Digital Humanities Utah 6 2022 (Provo, UT)

“A Consensus in Washington, but not a Washington Consensus: the Latin American Origins of the ‘Washington Consensus’ and the History of a Term,” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations 2018 (Philadelphia, PA)

“The Collapse of Bretton Woods and the birth of the ‘New’ International Monetary Fund,” Policy History Conference 2018 (Tempe, AZ)

“The Revolutionary 1954 Internal Revenue Act” (with Phil Magness), Policy History Conference 2018 (Tempe, AZ)

“‘The evil soil of poverty and strife’: Retrospective on the 50th Anniversary of the Truman Doctrine,” American Historical Association—Pacific Coast Branch Conference 2017 (Northridge, CA)

“The Problem of Austrian Economics for Historians” History of Economics Society Conference 2017 (Toronto, Canada)

“History and the ‘Informal Economy,” Informal Economy Summit 2017 (Provo, UT)

“The Revenge of Dis-Embedded Liberalism,” Policy History Conference 2016 (Nashville, TN)

“Policy History and Diplomatic History: Together at Last?” Policy History Conference 2014 (Columbus, OH)

“American Occupations as Policy Incubators: The Origins of a Republican Party, Global Political Economy” Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations 2013 (Arlington, VA)

“Growth without Inflation: Eisenhower’s Attempt to Overwhelm Keynesianism by his Learning from Abroad” Policy History Conference 2012 (Richmond, VA)