New Books in Diplomatic History
Episodes
Jørgen Jensehaugen, "Arab-Israeli Diplomacy Under Carter: The US, Israel and the Palestinians" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The history of U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East is marked by numerous stark failures and a few ephemeral successes. Jimmy Carter's short-lived Middle...
The Security Dilemma in the Korean Peninsula: Foreign Policy of Yoon Seok-youl, the Incoming President of South Korea
28 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
South Korean presidential election ended and the conservative party candidate, Yoon Suk-yeol won the election. How will he balance the relationships b...
China’s International Relations and the Ukraine Crisis
25 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken the ground of global politics, and one of the key questions has been China’s position in the situation. In...
Jeremy Friedman, "Ripe for Revolution: Building Socialism in the Third World" (Harvard UP, 2022)
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the first decades after World War II, many newly independent Asian and African countries and established Latin American states pursued a socialist ...
Jonathan M. Katz, "Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America's Empire" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Katz’s Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire (St. Martin’s Press, 202...
The Future of Disorder: A Discussion with Helen Thompson
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In her book Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century (Oxford UP, 2022), Cambridge academic Helen Thompson gets beyond the ephemeral and analyses in...
Molly M. Melin, "The Building and Breaking of Peace: Corporate Activities in Civil War Prevention and Resolution" (Oxford UP, 2021)
21 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Private corporations are rarely discussed as playing a role in efforts to curb civil violence, even though they often have strong interests in maintai...
Kevin O'Sullivan, "The NGO Moment: The Globalisation of Compassion from Biafra to Live Aid" (Cambridge UP, 2021))
18 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Kevin O’Sullivan talks about his book on aid-focused NGOs from Ireland, Britain, and Canada in the 1960s-80s, The NGO Moment: The ...
Carter R. Johnson, "Partition and Peace in Civil Wars: Dividing Lands and Peoples to End Ethnic Conflict" (Routledge, 2021)
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Partition and Peace in Civil Wars: Dividing Lands and Peoples to End Ethnic Conflict (Routledge, 2021), Dr. Carter Johnson examines whether parti...
Jane M. Ferguson, "Repossessing Shanland: Myanmar, Thailand, and a Nation-State Deferred" (U Wisconsin Press, 2021)
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Around five million people across Southeast Asia identify as Shan. Though the Shan people were promised an independent state in the 1947 Union of Burm...
The Future of Africa: A Discussion with James A. Robinson
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Africa is often portrayed in terms of dictators, starvation, corruption, tribalism, war, disease, poverty and crime. In this podcast Professor James ...
Togzhan Kassenova, "Atomic Steppe: How Kazakhstan Gave Up the Bomb" (Stanford UP, 2022)
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This month we are delighted to host Togzhan Kassenova on our NBN Central Asian Studies podcast. Dr Kassenova is the author of the beautifully resear...
Jeremy Black, "The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: Strategies for a World War" (Roman and Littlefield, 2022)
08 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The wars between 1792 and 1815 saw the making of the modern world, with Britain and Russia the key powers to emerge triumphant from a long period of b...
Edward Jones Corredera, "The Diplomatic Enlightenment: Spain, Europe, and the Age of Speculation" (Brill, 2021)
07 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Diplomatic Enlightenment: Spain, Europe, and the Age of Speculation (Brill, 2021) reconfigures the study of the origins of the Enlightenment in t...
Gardner Thompson, "Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel" (Saqi, 2020)
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel (Saqi Books, 2020), Gardner Thompson offers a clear-eyed review of political Zionis...
Boyd van Dijk, "Preparing for War: the Making of the 1949 Geneva Conventions" (Oxford UP, 2022)
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The 1949 Geneva Conventions are the most important rules for armed conflict ever formulated. To this day they continue to shape contemporary debates a...
Mark Edele, "Stalinism at War: The Soviet Union in World War II" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
01 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stalinism at War: The Soviet Union in World War II (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021) tells the epic story of the Soviet Union in World War Two. Startin...
Anjali Kaushlesh Dayal, "Incredible Commitments: How UN Peacekeeping Failures Shape Peace Processes" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why do warring parties turn to United Nations peacekeeping and peacemaking even when they think it will fail? In Incredible Commitments: How UN Pe...
Wouter Werner, "Repetition and International Law" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Acts of repetition abound in international law. Security Council Resolutions typically start by recalling, recollecting, recognising or reaffirming pr...
Marc David Baer, "The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs" (Basic Books, 2021)
17 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Ottoman Empire has been many things throughout its long history. One of the greatest and gravest threats to Christian Europe. A source of inspirat...
Nicholas Mulder, "The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War" (Yale UP, 2022)
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Economic sanctions dominate the landscape of world politics today. First developed in the early twentieth century as a way of exploiting the flows of ...
Anthony Tucker-Jones, "Churchill, Master and Commander: Winston Churchill at War 1895–1945" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From his earliest days Winston Churchill was an extreme risk taker and he carried this into adulthood. Today he is widely hailed as Britain's greatest...
Heather L. Dichter, "Bidding for the 1968 Olympic Games: International Sport's Cold War Battle with NATO" (U Massachusetts Press, 2021)
11 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Heather Dichter, Associate Professor of Sports History and Sports Management at the International Centre for Sports History and...
Alexander Lanoszka, "Military Alliances in the Twenty-First Century" (Polity Press, 2022)
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alliance politics is a regular headline grabber. When a possible military crisis involving Russia, North Korea, or China rears its head, leaders and c...
Katherine Harvey, "A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Saudi Struggle for Iraq" (Oxford UP, 2022)
08 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Iraq has in the last year taken a lead in sponsoring talks between Middle Eastern arch-rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran in an effort to prevent tension in...
Marco Wyss, "Postcolonial Security: Britain, France, and West Africa's Cold War" (Oxford UP, 2021)
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In light of the discrepancy between Britain’s and France’s postcolonial security roles in Africa, which seemed already determined half a decade af...
Micah Alpaugh, "Friends of Freedom: The Rise of Social Movements in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the old cliché goes, “there must have been something in the water.” A new book by historian Micah Alpaugh, Friends of Freedom: The Rise of So...
Michelle Jurkovich, "Feeding the Hungry: Advocacy and Blame in the Global Fight Against Hunger" (Oxford UP, 2020)
07 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Food insecurity poses one of the most pressing development and human security challenges in the world. Feeding the Hungry: Advocacy and Blame in the ...
Jonathan R. Hunt and Simon Miles, "The Reagan Moment: America and the World in the 1980s" (Cornell UP, 2021)
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In The Reagan Moment: America and the World in the 1980s (Cornell UP, 2021), the ideas, events, strategies, trends, and movements that shaped the 19...
Simon Topping, "Northern Ireland, the United States and the Second World War" (Bloomsbury, 2022)
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Northern Ireland, the United States and the Second World War (Bloomsbury, 2022), Dr. Simon Topping analyses the American military presence in Nor...
Joseph W. Ho, "Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China" (Cornell UP, 2022)
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph W. Ho’s book Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China (Cornell University Press, 2021) offers...
Mohamed Zeeshan, "Flying Blind: India's Quest for Global Leadership" (Vintage Books, 2021)
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, India has repeatedly expressed its ambitions of becoming a global power – or ‘jagat guru.’ Yet, many believe that India’s eco...
Ada Ferrer, "Cuba: An American History" (Scribner, 2021)
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“No country is ever just one thing.” In her new book Cuba: An American History (Scribner, 2021), NYU historian Ada Ferrer shows this again and a...
Alexander Dukalskis, "Making the World Safe for Dictatorship" (Oxford UP, 2021)
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Making the World Safe for Dictatorship (Oxford University Press, 2021) Dr. Alexander Dukalskis looks at the tactics that authoritarian states use...
Paweł Markiewicz, "Unlikely Allies: Nazi German and Ukrainian Nationalist Collaboration in the General Government During World War II" (Purdue UP, 2021)
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Unlikely Allies: Nazi German and Ukrainian Nationalist Collaboration in the General Government During World War II (Purdue UP, 2021) offers the firs...
Courtney Hillebrecht, "Saving the International Justice Regime: Beyond Backlash against International Courts" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Saving the International Justice Regime: Beyond Backlash against International Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2021) is at the forefront of a ne...
Jason Pack, "Libya and the Global Enduring Disorder" (Oxford UP, 2021)
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Libya stands out as an example of a complex, internecine Middle Eastern and North African conflict in which regional and global powers as well as jiha...
Katja Hoyer, "Blood and Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German Empire" (Pegasus Books, 2021)
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Before 1871, Germany was not yet nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-n...
Jeremy Black, "A Short History of War" (Yale UP, 2021)
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout history, warfare has transformed social, political, cultural, and religious aspects of our lives. We tell tales of wars--past, present, and...
Richard Bellamy et al., "Flexible Europe: Differentiated Integration, Democracy, and Domination" (Bristol UP, 2022)
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The past decade has been pivotal in the development of the European Union. The single currency has been tested to the limits by successive crises in t...
Heidi Wang-Kaeding, "China's Environmental Foreign Relations" (Routledge, 2021)
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Environmental protection and climate actions has embedded in China’s foreign policy and the Chinese government has recently pledged to make the Belt...
Sumantra Bose, "Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict" (Yale UP, 2021)
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Kashmir” carries the burden of being known as one of the world’s biggest flashpoints. If a novel, TV show, or video game wants an easy internat...
Noah Weisbord, "The Crime of Aggression: The Quest for Justice in an Age of Drones, Cyberattacks, Insurgents, and Autocrats" (Princeton UP, 2019)
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On July 17, 2018, starting an unjust war became a prosecutable international crime alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Instea...
E. Natalie Rothman, "The Dragoman Renaissance: Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism" (Cornell UP, 2021)
24 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Dragoman Renaissance: Diplomatic Interpreters and the Routes of Orientalism (Cornell UP, 2021) is a fascinating study of a crucial early modern ...
Mark S. Berlin, "Criminalizing Atrocity: The Global Spread of Criminal Laws Against International Crimes" (Oxford UP, 2020)
23 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Political Scientist Mark Berlin’s new book, Criminalizing Atrocity: The Global Spread of Criminal Laws Against International Crimes (Oxford UP, 20...
Alan Allport, "Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War, 1938-1941" (Knopf, 2020)
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Here is the many-faceted, world-historically significant story of Britain at war. In looking closely at the military and political dimensions of the c...
Luis Lobo-Guerrero et al., "Mapping, Connectivity, and the Making of European Empires" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)
22 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Luis Lobo-Guerrero is one of the three editors of this volume—Mapping, Connectivity, and the Making of European Empires—and one of the six contrib...
Luke Glanville, "Sharing Responsibility: The History and Future of Protection from Atrocities" (Princeton UP, 2021)
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The idea that states share a responsibility to shield people everywhere from atrocities is presently under threat. Despite some early twenty-first cen...
Yeling Tan, "Disaggregating China, Inc.: State Strategies in the Liberal Economic Order" (Cornell UP, 2021)
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Once you understand that markets require public institutions of governance and regulation in order to function well, and further, you accept that nati...
Ryan D. Griffiths, "Secession and the Sovereignty Game: Strategy and Tactics for Aspiring Nations" (Cornell UP, 2021)
20 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Secession and the Sovereignty Game: Strategy and Tactics for Aspiring Nations offers a strategic theory for how secessionist movements attempt to win...
Andrew Gilbert, "International Intervention and the Problem of Legitimacy: Encounters in Postwar Bosnia-Herzegovina" (Cornell UP, 2020)
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In International Intervention and the Problem of Legitimacy (Cornell UP, 2020) Andrew C. Gilbert, who is assistant professor in anthropology at the...
Yossi Alpher, "Death Tango: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, and Three Fateful Days in March" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Death Tango: Ariel Sharon, Yasser Arafat, and Three Fateful Days in March (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021) traces the Middle East dynamic back to the e...
Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr., "Aid Imperium: United States Foreign Policy and Human Rights in Post-Cold War Southeast Asia" (U Michigan Press, 2021)
15 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The United States is the world's largest donor of foreign aid, and in this profound analysis, Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. demonstrates the links...
Edmond Smith, "Merchants: The Community That Shaped England's Trade and Empire, 1550-1650" (Yale UP, 2021)
13 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the century following Elizabeth I's rise to the throne, English trade blossomed as thousands of merchants launched ventures across the globe. Throu...
Amish Raj Mulmi, "All Roads Lead North: China, Nepal and the Contest for the Himalayas" (Context, 2021)
09 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the sidelines of COP26, Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba met his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi as part of an effort to find a way to r...
Timur Dadabaev, "Decolonizing Central Asian International Relations: Beyond Empires" (Routledge, 2021)
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This month we discuss the post-coloniality of Central Asia's International relations with Timur Dadabaev, the author of Decolonizing Central Asian In...
Samuel Moyn, "Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War" (FSG, 2021)
06 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is it possible that efforts to make war more humane can actually make it more common and thus more destructive? This tension at the heart of this ...
Michael S. Neiberg, "When France Fell: The Vichy Crisis and the Fate of the Anglo-American Alliance" (Harvard UP, 2021)
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
According to US Secretary of War Henry Stimson, the "most shocking single event" of World War II was not the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but rath...
Rethinking China's Humanitarian Diplomacy before and during Covid-19
03 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the Covid-19 pandemic spread to Europe and other parts of the globe in spring of 2020, the Chinese government started reporting donations of Person...
Shawn F. McHale, "The First Vietnam War: Violence, Sovereignty, and the Fracture of the South, 1945-1956" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When people think of the “Vietnam War” they usually think of the hugely devastating and divisive conflict between North Vietnam and a United State...
Raymond C. Kuo, "Following the Leader: Alliance Design, Security Strategies, and Institutional Emulation" (Stanford UP, 2021)
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nations have powerful incentives to ensure that their military alliances are well-structured. Successful military alliances set long-lasting foundatio...
Robin J. Hayes, "Love for Liberation: African Independence, Black Power, and a Diaspora Underground" (U Washington Press, 2021)
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During the height of the Cold War, passionate idealists across the US and Africa came together to fight for Black self-determination and the antiracis...
Daniel Lee, "The Right of Sovereignty: Jean Bodin on the Sovereign State and the Law of Nations" (Oxford UP, 2021)
24 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sovereignty is the vital organizing principle of modern international law. Daniel Lee's book The Right of Sovereignty: Jean Bodin on the Sovereign St...
Christopher Coker, "The Rise of the Civilizational State" (Polity Press, 2019)
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years the resurgence of great power competition has gripped the headlines, with new emerging powers (such as Russia and China) seeking to ch...
Anders Persson, "EU Diplomacy and the Israeli-Arab Conflict, 1967-2019" (Edinburgh UP, 2020)
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nearly 50 years since the European Foreign Ministers issued their first declaration on the conflict between Israel and Palestine in 1971, the Europea...
Ambrogio A. Caiani, "To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII" (Yale UP, 2021)
17 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, and Pope Pius VII shared a common goal: to reconcile the Catholic ch...
Mark Mazower, "The Greek Revolution: 1821 and the Making of Modern Europe" (Penguin, 2021)
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the exhausted, repressive years that followed Napoleon's defeat in 1815, there was one cause that came to galvanize countless individuals across Eu...
Samuel Moyn, "Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War" (FSG, 2021)
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Geographic and temporal limits have typically contained modern wars—rulers can ask their populace to risk lives and treasure for so long before losi...
Theresa Keeley, "Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America" (Cornell UP, 2020)
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America (Cornell UP, 2020), Theresa Keeley analyzes ...
Yuri Kostenko, "Ukraine's Nuclear Disarmament: A History" (HURI, 2020)
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Yuri Kostenko’s Ukraine’s Nuclear Disarmament: A History (Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2020) is a meticulous account of how the Ukraini...
Anna Saunders et al., "Revolutions in International Law: The Legacies of 1917" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1917, the adoption of the revolutionary Mexican Constitution and the October Revolution shook the foundations of international order in profound, u...
Julia E. Ault, "Saving Nature Under Socialism: Transnational Environmentalism in East Germany, 1968-1990" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When East Germany collapsed in 1989-1990, outside observers were shocked to learn the extent of environmental devastation that existed there. The comm...
Jussi M. Hanhimäki, "Pax Transatlantica: America and Europe in the Post-Cold War Era" (Oxford UP, 2021)
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is the West finished as a political idea? In recent years, observers have begun pointing to signs that the transatlantic community is eroding. When th...
Tobias Hof, "Galeazzo Ciano: The Fascist Pretender" (U Toronto Press, 2021)
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
He was the son of a prominent politician, Benito Mussolini’s son-in-law, and viewed by many as the Duce’s likely successor, only to die before a ...
Antony Best, "British Engagement with Japan, 1854-1922: The Origins and Course of an Unlikely Alliance" (Routledge, 2020)
27 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Antony Best's British Engagement with Japan, 1854-1922: The Origins and Course of an Unlikely Alliance (Routledge, 2020) reconsiders the circumstan...
Sam Wineburg, "Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone)" (U Chicago Press, 2018)
21 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We are surrounded by more readily available information than ever before. And a huge percentage of it is inaccurate. Some of the bad info is well-mean...
Beyond a Shadow: Southeast Asia Transcending US-China Rivalries
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why do Southeast Asia specialists get tired of explaining that the politics of the region cannot be reduced to a zero-sum game of Chinese-US great pow...
Cecelia Lynch, "Interpreting International Politics" (Routledge, 2014)
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Interpreting International Politics (Routledge, 2014) is a short and lively account of how international relations was founded and developed as an in...
Jessica M. Kim, "Imperial Metropolis: Los Angeles, Mexico, and the Borderlands of American Empire, 1865–1941" (UNC Press, 2019)
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1865 and 1900, the population of Los Angeles grew from around 5,000 people to over 100,000. With population growth that explosive came the opp...
Ozan Ozavci, "Dangerous Gifts: Imperialism, Security, and Civil Wars in the Levant, 1798-1864" (Oxford UP, 2021)
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798 to the foreign interventions in the ongoing civil wars in Syria, Yemen, and Libya today, global em...
Lorena De Vita, "Israelpolitik: German-Israeli Relations, 1949-69" (Manchester UP, 2021)
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The rapprochement between Germany and Israel in the aftermath of the Holocaust is one of the most striking political developments of the twentieth cen...
Timon Screech, "The Shogun's Silver Telescope: God, Art, and Money in the English Quest for Japan, 1600-1625" (Oxford UP, 2020)
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An English mission to Japan arrives in 1613 with all the standard English commodities, including wool and cloth: which the English hope to trade for J...
Mark Atwood Lawrence, "The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era" (Princeton UP, 2021)
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Histories of the Vietnam War are not in short supply. In U.S. history, it ranks alongside the Civil War and World War Two in terms of author coverag...
Sean Andrew Wempe, "Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations" (Oxford UP, 2019)
06 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Revenants of the German Empire: Colonial Germans, Imperialism, and the League of Nations (Oxford UP, 2019) reveals the various ways in which Colonial...
Daniel Larsen, "Plotting for Peace: American Peacemakers, British Codebreakers, and Britain at War, 1914–1917" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
With Britain by late 1916 facing the prospect of an economic crisis and increasingly dependent on the US, rival factions in Asquith's government battl...
John Shovlin, "Trading with the Enemy: Britain, France, and the 18th-Century Quest for a Peaceful World Order" (Yale UP, 2021)
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Britain and France waged war eight times in the century following the Glorious Revolution, a mutual antagonism long regarded as a "Second Hundred Year...
Samuel Foster, "Yugoslavia in the British Imagination: Peace, War and Peasants Before Tito" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
27 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Despite Britain's entering the 20th century as the dominant world power, its public discourses were imbued with cultural pessimism and rising social a...
Grace C. Huang, "Chiang Kai-Shek's Politics of Shame: Leadership, Legacy, and National Identity in China" (Harvard UP, 2021)
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Once a powerful figure who reversed the disintegration of China and steered the country to Allied victory in World War II, Chiang Kai-shek fled into e...
Nikki Hessell, "Sensitive Negotiations: Indigenous Diplomacy and British Romantic Poetry" (SUNY Press, 2021)
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Diplomatic relationships between Indigenous sovereigns and colonial and settler governments were defined by language. In some cases, cultural divides ...
Emmanuel Navon, "The Star and the Scepter: A Diplomatic History of Israel" (Jewish Publication Society, 2020)
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The first all-encompassing book on Israel’s foreign policy and the diplomatic history of the Jewish people, The Star and the Scepter: A Diplomatic ...
Elizabeth Borgwardt et al., "Rethinking American Grand Strategy" (Oxford UP, 2021)
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is grand strategy? What does it aim to achieve? And what differentiates it from normal strategic thought--what, in other words, makes it "grand"?...
Giles Tremlett, "The International Brigades: Fascism, Freedom and the Spanish Civil War" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When civil war broke out in Spain in 1936, tens of thousands of young men and women from across the world flocked there to fight against the Nationali...
Alex Hochuli et al., "The End of the End of History: Politics in the Twenty-First Century" (Zero Books, 2021)
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We live in strange times. Politics around the world seem to be transforming into something new and often frightening. But this process has a history. ...
Philippe Vonnard, "Creating a United Europe of Football: The Formation of UEFA (1949–1961)" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Philippe Vonnard, Senior SNSF Researcher at the University de Lausanne, and the author of Creating a United Europe of Football...
Karen Gram-Skjoldager et al., "Organizing the 20th-Century World: International Organizations and the Emergence of International Public Administration, 1920-1960s" (Bloomsbury, 2020)
30 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The history of international organizations has been an exciting area of research in recent years, with such landmark studies as Stephen Wertheim’s ...
Mark P. Bradley and Mary L. Dudziak, "Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism" (U Massachusetts Press, 2021)
30 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Making the Forever War: Marilyn Young on the Culture and Politics of American Militarism (University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) is a timely col...
Stephen Biddle, "Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods of Guerillas, Warlords, and Militias" (Princeton UP, 2021)
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From the Taliban to Hezbollah, armed nonstate actors and civil warfare have dominated the US national security debate for much of the last 20 years. Y...
Victoria Basualdo et al., "Big Business and Dictatorships in Latin America: A Transnational History of Profits and Repression" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of the Economic and Business History channel, I spoke with Dr. Victoria Basualdo and Dr. Marcelo Bucheli about their new edited book. ...
Naphtaly Shem-Tov, "Israeli Theatre: Mizrahi Jews and Self-Representation" (Routledge, 2021)
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Naphtaly Shem-Tov's book Israeli Theatre: Mizrahi Jews and Self-Representation (Routledge, 2021) introduces readers to the stagecraft produced by Mi...
Joseph Stieb, "The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why did the United States invade Iraq, setting off a chain of events that profoundly changed the Middle East and the US global position? In The Regim...