Kathleen Burk and the History of Diplomacy

Abstract

Professor Kathleen Burk has worked on some of the key themes in the history of diplomacy for more than three decades. Foremost amongst them has been the role of financial strength in the projection of power, and other key themes have included the role of the individual in making state policy; the concept and practice of “imperialism”; and the importance of non-state actors, such as banks, businessmen, and even tourists in the interplay between nations. As this article demonstrates, she has attempted throughout to strike a historiographical balance, moved more by her empirical sense of the evidence than the fashions that have come and gone during her career. She worked on transatlantic relations before “Atlantic History” came to the fore; transnationalism before the movement of ideas across frontiers became an obsession; and imperialism before the recent recrudescence of interest in this arena too. In this special issue of Diplomacy and Statecraft, Professor Burk's former colleagues, collaborators, and pupils demonstrate how they have adopted and adapted her techniques: from the history of decolonisation to histories of charities to human rights, and covering topics as diverse as British defence policy and twentieth century Americans' concepts of what “Europe” is or might become.