New Topics and Methods for International History in a Globalized World

Seminar description

This departmental seminar explores some of the most innovative as well as established themes of 20th century international history, with the aim of making students familiar with the field’s wide differences in focus, methods, and analytical scope. The initial sessions will investigate the connections, mutual influences and boundaries with the related fields of transnational and global history. We will then concentrate on a few central, exemplary topical areas, whose interpretations and methodological approaches have defined the discipline in recent times. The final meetings will approach issues and readings still to be determined in view of the seminar’s discussion and the participants’ interests.

Programme

11 October: International, Transnational, Global History: an Introduction
 
• P. Finney, "Introduction: What Is International History?" in P. Finney, ed., Palgrave Advances in International History (London: Palgrave, 2005), pp. 1-35.

• A.G. Hopkins, "The History of Globalization—and the Globalization of History?" in A.G. Hopkins, eds., Globalization in World History (London: Pimlico, 2002), pp. 11-46.

• P.-Y. Saunier, "Learning by Doing: Notes About the Making of the Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History." Journal of Modern European History, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2008), pp. 159-80.

 

18 October:  Patterns of Globalization
 
• H. James, The Creation and Destruction of Value: The Globalization Cycle (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), Introduction and chapter 1 “The End of Globalization: A Millennial Perspective” , chs. 1 and 2.

• P.N. Stearns, Globalization in World History (London; New York: Routledge, 2010), Introduction, chapter 6 “Globalization since the 1940s: A New Global History?,” and “Conclusion: The Historical Perspective.”

 

25 October:  Empires
 
• C.A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), ch. 6.

• C. Aydin, “A Global Anti-Western Moment? The Russo-Japanese War, Decolonization and Asian Modernity,” in Sebastian Conrad and Dominic Sachsenmaier, eds., Competing Visions of World Order Global Moments and Movements, 1880s-1930s (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), pp. 213-236.

 

8 November:  Challenges to World Order 

• S. Esenbel, “Japan’s Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam,” American Historical Review, Vol. 109, No. 4 (2004), pp. 1140-1170.

• M. Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (2008), Introduction, ch. 18.

 

15 November:  Stabilizing a Western Order 

• M. Leffler, “The American Conception of National Security and the Beginnings of the Cold War, 1945-48,” American Historical Review, Vol. 89, No. 2 (1984), pp. 346-81.

• C. Maier, “The Two Postwar Eras and the Condition for Stability in Twentieth-Century Western Europe,” American Historical Review, Vol. 86, No. 2 (1981), pp. 327-67

 

22 November: Decolonization 

• Roland Burke, "'The Compelling Dialogue of Freedom': Human Rights at the Bandung Conference," Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 28 (2006) pp. 947–965.

• M. Connelly, “Rethinking the Cold War and Decolonization: The Grand Strategy of the Algerian War for Independence,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2001), pp. 221-245.

 

29 November:  Modernization Theories in the Cold War
Guest speaker: Elisabetta Bini (MWF)

• A. Westad, The Global Cold War (2007), chs. 1-2. 

• D. Engerman and C. Unger. “Towards a Global History of Modernization,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 33, No. 3 (2009), pp. 375-385.

 

6 December:  Topic and readings to be determined in the seminar’s discussion (migration; Islamic challenge; gender issues; environmental problems etc.)

 

13 December:  Topic and readings to be determined in the seminar’s discussion