A West Virginia University professor has received a $60,000 grant to help fund the research and writing of a book on the history of American public diplomacy in the Third World.

The Smith Richardson Foundation grant awarded to Jason Parker, an assistant professor in the Eberly College of Arts and SciencesDepartment of History, is part of the Foundations program for junior faculty in fields related to international security studies. The grants objectives are meant to fund a research project that culminates in a book relevant to contemporary policymaking.

Dr. Parkers research proposal is entitledThe Contest: Hearts, Minds, and the History of American Public Diplomacy in the Third Worldand will lead to the production of a book by that same title. The book will be a one volume history with collections of case studies of the Cold War era U.S. public diplomacy successes and failures. Parker will then analyze the collections in order to discover lessons concerning public diplomacy efforts in the present day, post-9/11 world.

The Smith Richardson Foundation grant will fund a few of months of archival research and eight months of writing. Parker will be focusing on the project this summer and then January through September of 2006.

I am thrilled and honored to get the fellowship, since the competition for it is very keen,Parker said.I’m very excited about doing this book. The fellowship program, in a sense, seeks to bridge the gap between historical studies and contemporary problems, and the issue of public diplomacy posed as many challenges during the Cold War as it does in the post-9/11 world. My hope is that my project will shed some light on that past, as well as our present and future. I am deeply grateful to the foundation for their support.