[3] LaFeber's teaching abilities led to his longstanding undergraduate "History of American Foreign Relations" class at Cornell gaining a reputation as one of the university's best and most popular courses.

"[21] The study of history at Wisconsin had a heritage going back to the time of Frederick Jackson Turner, and the intellectual atmosphere at the school encouraged people to think differently.

[22] In an era when the realistic theory of international relations predominated, LaFeber was influenced by Harrington's inductive methodology in seminar teaching, sense of irony, and suggestions that the economic interpretations of Charles A.

[24] During his dissertation research at the Library of Congress, LaFeber found himself at the same table as historian Ernest R. May of Harvard, with both working on the same period but with very different interpretations of it.

[7] LaFeber found an engaging environment with a number of other up-and-coming figures in the history and government departments, including Allan Bloom, Theodore J. Lowi, and Joel H. Silbey among others.

I found both the policy makers and the businessmen of this era to be responsible, conscientious men who accepted the economic and social realities of their day, understood domestic and foreign problems, debated issues vigorously, and especially were unafraid to strike out on new and uncharted paths in order to create what they sincerely hoped would be a better nation and a better world.

One later accounting of the Wisconsin School notes that in The New Empire, "LaFeber's arguments were sometimes questionable or overdrawn, and he acknowledged that he had passed by episodes that did not fit his pattern.

[34] Eliot Fremont-Smith of The New York Times described it as part of a succeeding wave of books that tried to refine those insights in a firmer historical grounding.

[34] Fremont-Smith praised LaFeber's work for being a "penetrating account" that was especially strong in sorting out the chronology of events and tracing the impact of domestic politics in each of the countries involved.

"[2] However, not all have agreed; a broadside against Cold War revisionists was published by historian Robert H. Ferrell in 2006, who criticized their reliance on a monocausal theory.

In particular he charged LaFeber with overusing the papers of Bernard Baruch, whom Ferrell said lacked real influence in determining American foreign policy.

"[38] Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (1984, revised 1992) received the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award;[7] in it, LaFeber formulates a variant of dependency theory, called neo-dependency theory, that examines corporate interests as part of explaining the relationships between the countries involved, but still looks at the role of U.S. government policy and other factors as well.

[39] The American Age: United States Foreign Policy at Home and Abroad Since 1750 (1989, revised 1994) encompasses some of what was in LaFeber's famous course.

In The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Relations Throughout History (1997), LaFeber turned toward East Asia, surveying the breadth of the American engagement and conflict with Japan from the nineteenth century through the 1990s.

[7][9] LaFeber then shifted focus and returned to his youthful interest in basketball, examining the effect of modern sports and communication empires in his book, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism (1999, revised 2002), which analyzes the rise in popularity of basketball, Michael Jordan, Nike, and cable satellite networks and their relation to, and metaphor for, globalization.

[43] LaFeber's undergraduate History of American Foreign Relations class achieved a reputation as one of the toughest and most popular courses on campus.

[9][44] LaFeber's lectures were considered "events"; classes met Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with the last of these being in front of even more people than the weekday ones, because students brought their friends to listen.

[46] LaFeber, who was known for being "old school" in his appearance and demeanor, always wearing a coat and tie to class, was lauded by Cornell's in-house newspaper for his simplistic approach to presentation,[4] with a style that has been characterized as "anti-razzle-dazzle".

[45] He began classes by writing an outline of only a few points on the chalkboard and then talking without notes[4] (lecturing from memory was a technique his mentor Harrington had used).

[9][44] While other revisionists focused more on ideological or institutional forces, LaFeber made his scholarship and his lectures memorable by stressing the role of individuals, from his narrative hero John Quincy Adams to a few Cornell-related figures such as Willard Straight.

[47] Throughout his career LaFeber was concerned with teaching students critical thinking skills in historical analysis rather than gaining converts to his viewpoint,[48][9] and accordingly even those who did not always agree with the markets-oriented interpretations advanced in his lectures still found them compelling.

[4][8][45] In 2013, the American Historical Association would write of this course that, despite his publishing achievements, "LaFeber might be even more distinguished as a teacher: one for whom the overworked adjective 'legendary' is entirely fitting.

[53] In another prominent occasion, Cornell president Hunter Rawlings chose LaFeber to give a commemoration address on the Arts Quadrangle following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

[8][54] Prominent former students of LaFeber in areas outside academia have included: U.S. Representative Thomas Downey, U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and Undersecretary of Defense and U.S.

[59] In general, LaFeber was in sympathy with many of the student causes of the 1960s, including opposition to the war, the quest for racial justice, and the desire for a political system that better represented democratic ideals.

"[47] But the occupation of Willard Straight Hall by African American students, who eventually became armed, as well as some other physical and verbal threats made against university officials and faculty at the time, greatly dismayed him.

[67] The editor-in-chief of the journal wrote in an introductory note that "Professor LaFeber has been a commanding presence in the field of the history of American foreign relations for more than four decades.

[5][68] (The event had been moved from the originally scheduled American Museum of Natural History venue due to overwhelming demand for tickets.

[5] Hunter Rawlings, the president of Cornell, noted that the event evinced an "intellectual passion, a group catharsis of the first order," not by any manifestation of popular culture or the information age, but by nothing more than "a lecture on diplomatic history".

... An exceptionally visible and valuable public intellectual, Professor LaFeber has managed to reach broad audiences without sacrificing academic rigor.