Intellettuali e politica estera negli Stati Uniti: Owen Lattimore e la geopolitica americana tra le due guerre

In the context of the U.S. geopolitical thought between the two world wars, Owen Lattimore is a paradigmatic figure for understanding some guidelines of American foreign policy towards East Asia, both in the domestic cultural debate of elites (university, think tanks, government circles) and in official policymaking. Among the most influential sinologists and experts of Asia at that time, Lattimore described the system by which societies – and social factors – affect environment and are in turn influenced by it. He also studied the issue of “frontier”, in particular the Russian and Chinese one, and investigated the problems of nationalities, from Xinjiang to Manchuria. Gravitating around Wilsonian intellectual circles, albeit approaching the political issues in a “realist way”, during the 1940s Lattimore provided a significant conception of the present and future international system, whereas he foresaw a coming post-imperial and interconnected world, in which Asia and its rising powers would have been crucial. This essay aims to provide a critical reconstruction of Owen Lattimore’s thought and biography, as well as his contribution on the relationship between knowledge and foreign policy within the context of U.S. geopolitics during the period 1920s–1940s, retracing some intellectuals footsteps from his writings and the literature related to this issue. This critical review is intended to purify his figure by the politicization accomplished against him in the United States since 1950s – especially during the McCarthy era – in order to contextualize the activity of this prominent scholar and, finally, analyze in a more objective way his intellectual contribution to geopolitics, area studies and comparative history.