In Democracy in Exile , Daniel Bessner explores the life of Hans Speier, one of the most significant figures in the history of U.S. defense policy. Bessner traces Speier's intellectual development from Weimar Germany to the Cold War United States, revealing how his European roots shaped the expert-driven approach to foreign policymaking that American elites institutionalized during and after World War II. A key figure in a transatlantic network of émigré policymakers and analysts, Speier helped establish novel institutions such as the RAND Corporation that transformed how US foreign policy was made. Democracy in Exile highlights how social scientists like Speier left academia to create a "military-intellectual complex" that insulated American decision making from public opinion and that continues to shape US defense policy today. "This biography of Hans Speier is of unusual interest. Daniel Bessner illuminates the problems and projects of an entire generation of ‘defense intellectuals’ from World War Two to the post-Vietnam era. Bessner argues incisively for the role of ideas in foreign affairs and resists the conclusion that Speier was a creature of American Cold War politics. Highly recommended." (Bruce Kuklick, University of Pennsylvania, author of Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger ) "Daniel Bessner is one of our most exciting emerging commentators on American foreign policy past and present. His Democracy in Exile is a pioneering study of Hans Speier and his milieu, and casts new light on the Weimar German sources of the American Century. In examining Speier's life, Bessner poses critical and enduring questions about the relationship of expert knowledge and democratic politics." (Samuel Moyn, Yale University, and author of The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History ) " Democracy in Exile is a fascinating and deeply researched account of Hans Speier’s rise as leading researcher at the RAND Corporation and his deepening belief that democracy could only survive through, in essence, undemocratic means. Daniel Bessner offers us an important and sobering assessment of the role of intellectuals in building the military-industrial complex." (Mary L. Dudziak, author of War-Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences ) Democracy in Exile offers a powerful deconstruction of the democratic pessimism at the core of elite foreign policy thinking during the Cold War and merits deeper exploration by Bessner and other talented historians. -- Jeremi Suri, University of Texas, Austin, and author of The Impossible Presidency Daniel Bessner is the Anne H. H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Assistant Professor in American Foreign Policy in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.