International Historians Research Articles

Too small to be of interest, too large to grasp? Histories of the Luxembourg financial centre

ABSTRACT The importance of smaller financial centres in international capitalism has recently been highlighted by a number of ‘leaks’. Yet such public attention stands in contrast to the paucity of historiographical research on these relatively new centres. To this regard, Luxembourg provides an interesting case study. While identified as a ‘global specialist’ by the Global Financial Centres Index, the genealogy of how it came to achieve this status remains largely under-researched. This article reviews the historiography of the Luxembourg financial centre from both external perspectives – how the international social sciences and humanities have positioned the Luxembourg financial sector within the broader finance and banking context – and internal viewpoints – how scholars in Luxembourg have recounted the relevant events. The Luxembourg financial centre began to appear in international historiography only in the last fifteen years. With only rare departures from general overviews and a tendency not to consult local sources, the contributions of international historians have mostly attempted to identify time frames and contextualise the particularities of its historical development. That said, a recent geographical diversification of the literature has seen the appearance of publications that demonstrate a more detailed understanding of its internal structures and links with other nerve centres of the global financial system. While a Luxembourg historiography began to develop in the late 1970s, it has often been produced to coincide with commemorative events, funded by players in the financial centre and frequently written by these same actors. While not necessarily hagiographic in approach, a lack of distance from the subject and a failure to problematise the subject has nevertheless meant that these writings are little more than factual introductions that, while useful, are limited in their historiographical depth. Furthermore, a dearth of archival research has produced a repetitive narrative based around a selection of key events and figures.

America's Israel: from Exodus to Apocalypse

Amy Kaplan tells of both the distant roots and contemporary processes that led Americans to view Israel as “ours,” but her treatment of the alliance to which the subtitle refers is limited to the cultural and spiritual planes. International historians will find in this volume little on the strategic ties between the two countries. Moreover, absent is any attempt to place the term “strategic relationship” in a comparative setting. Kaplan states that the partnership is an exception to the norms of international alliances but offers observations on no other diplomatic dyad. Instead, as the author notes, this is the story of the United States’ popular perception of Israel. Kaplan describes cogently the origins of the bond. She writes well, conveying how kinship between the two nations is based on a “common biblical heritage, suffering and salvation, the Holocaust’s legacy of unique moral obligations and beliefs [of] a mythic status,” forged through “metaphors, analogies and symbols” that impart emotional meaning to political reality. Thus, “cultural artifacts invite different meanings … while effectively ruling out others.” In the introduction and following chapter titled “Lands of Refuge,” Kaplan tells how a “providential narrative” primed Christian America to embrace Israel before either was a sovereign state, with both “settler colonialism and anti-colonialism” (the British Empire) their shared experiences (2–4).

The Polish Rider: CH Alexandrowicz and the reorientation of international law, Part I: Madras studies

Abstract This article analyses the prominent international legal historian, CH Alexandrowicz, known largely for his advocating of the East’s imprint on international law. It places his perspective of the East and South, and his diachronic narrative—the rise of naturalism, its fall to positivism, and eventual promise of return from positivism—in the context of his own traversing of geographies and his intellectual commitments, including his study of the Indian Constitution.

Out of sight, out of mind

Abstract The grand-ducal gallery of Oldenburg is a forgotten collection today, though once it enjoyed international fame. In less than a century, the dukes of Oldenburg in Lower Saxony collected an exemplary gallery of Old Masters that attracted the attention and the praise of international connoisseurs and art historians like Wilhelm Bode, Abraham Bredius and Tancred Borenius. Then, after the end of the First World War, the collection fell apart. In 1919, it was disassembled and its masterpieces were sold, once again generating international attention, this time from art dealers, museums and collectors eager to have their share of the plunder. The protests over this sell-out added impetus to the passing of a Kulturgutschutzgesetz, the first German law aimed at the protection of works of art of national value. This article reviews the history of the gallery and presents the results of a recent research project.

“A House of Cards Which Would Not Stand”: James Headlam-Morley, the Role of Experts, and the Danzig Question at the Paris Peace Conference

ABSTRACTRecent years have witnessed increasing interest amongst international historians on the influence by experts on foreign policy decision making. Most work thus far has concentrated on American foreign policy since 1945, but this analysis broadens the focus to consider the impact of experts on British decision makers through the use of informal networks below the level of Cabinet ministers whilst debating the future of the city of Danzig at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. It shows that despite a tendency by the protagonists to interpret their actions as subverting the official role and function of the Foreign Office, sufficient evidence can be found to suggest that through the use of back-channels to David Lloyd George, the prime minister, via Philip Kerr, his private secretary, some officials, such as James Headlam-Morley, within the Office managed to influence high-level decision making at Paris.

Henry Thomas Buckle's The History of Civilization in England in France (1865–1918): A Transnational Reception Case

ABSTRACT The article examines how Henry Thomas Buckle's History of Civilization in England was translated and understood in France from 1865 to 1918. Buckle was translated at a time when English historiography had lost its prominence in France. His positivism, and the influence that French thinkers such as Guizot, Michelet, and Comte had on his work, explain why Buckle was acclaimed during that period. He was published in a collection that made him appear as one of the leading international historians of his time. The article points out how French and British politics interfered with the publication of Buckle's History under the Second Empire and how finally Buckle was eclipsed by Marx. Through Buckle, the article gives a new outline of the reception of English historiography in France during the latter part of the nineteenth century.

Decoding Olympic History in a Painting by Charles de Coubertin

When Pierre de Coubertin died in 1937, he left an impressive amount of writings, which have enabled international sport historians to research his modern Olympic Games to this day. Besides the written sources on Olympic history, other artefacts play a minor role in the research of sport historians; visual sources such as artworks, in particular, have been overlooked and consequently are not used to their full potential. This observation does not seem to be important unless Pierre de Coubertin’s artistic family background is taken into account. The fact that his father, Charles de Coubertin (1822–1908), had been a painter sheds new light on visual sources and makes it necessary to take a more detailed look at them. This paper concentrates on one of Charles de Coubertin’s paintings, which is exhibited in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Drawing on Olympic history documents and art historical sources, the painting is decoded according to an art history method. Beyond that, artefacts created by the artist were discovered in the archives of the descendants of the Coubertin family. The combination of these sources evidences that Charles de Coubertin was a close observer of his son’s ideas and witnessed developments in Olympic history.

Emotions and the British Government’s Decision for War in 1914

ABSTRACTRecent years have witnessed increasing interest amongst international historians in the impact of emotions on foreign policy decisions as part of a broader movement usually known as the ‘emotional turn’. This trend is associated with findings from the field of neuroscience that cognition and emotion—rather than operating independently—remain inextricably bound together in human decision-making. Most work thus far has concentrated on American foreign policy since 1945, but this analysis broadens the focus to consider the impact of emotions on British decision-makers, especially Cabinet ministers, as they debated whether to go to war in 1914. It shows that despite a tendency by the protagonists themselves to interpret their actions in rational terms, sufficient evidence of emotions exist in the written record to allow a fresh approach to the July Crisis. Whilst emotions must be seen as acting alongside rational mental processes, rather than regularly over-powering them, a focus on the subject helps explain different approaches taken by individual ministers, why the majority came to approve intervention in the conflict, and how Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, partly by appearing to control his feelings, minimised resignations over the fateful decision. It also allows a new view about why the Cabinet decided to go to war on 4 August in defence of Belgium, despite deciding just a few days earlier that the question of fulfilling the 1839 guarantee of Belgian neutrality was ‘one of policy than of legal obligation’.

“Six mois à Hanoi”: Marcel Cadieux, Canada, and the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam, 1954–5

Drawing on an unpublished memoir by Marcel Cadieux entitled “Six mois à Hanoi,” this article offers the first biographical study of a Canadian diplomat to serve on the International Commission for Supervision and Control in Vietnam. It argues that Cadieux's pioneering experience on that commission during its first months in 1954–5 shaped his pro-American views on the Vietnam War as under-secretary of state for external affairs between 1964 and 1970. It also uses Cadieux's tenure in Hanoi as a lens through which to explore larger issues of both long-standing and more recent interest to Canadian international historians, including the bureaucratic culture of the Department of External Affairs, Canadian diplomacy's relationship with the decolonizing countries of the Third World, and the role of race, culture, religion, and anti-communism in the making of Canadian foreign policy.

When art was an Olympic discipline: the Fine Art Salon as a possible model for the concept of the Olympic Art Competitions from an art history perspective

ABSTRACTIn 1948, the seventh Olympic Art Competitions took place in London. The fact that such artistic competitions were conceptualized by Pierre de Coubertin and formed part in the Olympic program in the first half of the twentieth century is not commonly known. And although international sport historians researched different aspects of the Olympic Art Competitions since the 1980s, they have not sufficiently addressed possible artistic influences for such a concept and therefore treat them as a matter of fact. Particularly the fact that Pierre's father, Charles Louis Frédy de Coubertin (1822–1908), had been a famous painter at his time is overlooked up to now. This article traces the artistic background of the father and illustrates how his profession as Fine Art Salon painter influenced Pierre de Coubertin's concept of the Olympic Art Competitions. Subsequently, the paper compares organizational elements of the Fine Art Salons with those of the Olympic Art Competitions and unveils interesting parallels. Concerning the sources used, this article draws on art history sources as well as on unpublished material which was discovered in the archives of the descendants of the Coubertin family.

The Spanish Resurgence, 1713–1748, by Christopher Storrs

Christopher Storrs has written a good book. The best books are those that afford keys to ongoing reflections about open debates, either by providing new insights or revamping known arguments. Storrs does both. His fine work rests on two main pillars. First, he is a past master of Spain’s archive sources and those of other European countries (especially Italy and England). Secondly, he knows how to bring the Spanish picture into relation with general issues such as state construction and the diplomatic and imperial dimension. The upshot is a fresh and thought-provoking approach to an under-analysed theme: Spain’s eighteenth-century resurgence. For most historians around the world, Spain’s history is tied in with the rise and fall of its empire. In this view, Spain’s inability to shore up its empire, both in the Americas and in Europe, is depicted as an inevitable result of its confrontation with other emerging nations, Holland or Great Britain, a struggle that had dragged on since the early seventeenth century. The trouble is that this idea of ongoing crisis has traditionally been linked with the start of the nineteenth century, when Spain’s state and its American colonies both caved in. Even today, therefore, international historians view the eighteenth-century Spanish state as locked into a persistent crisis, and any possible improvements as being either driven by outside influence (notably French) or stillborn, as shown by the rapid loss of the colonies or (to put forward a much vaunted argument in this school of thought) the Battle of Trafalgar.

Narratives and Bodies: Culture beyond the Cultural Turn

ABSTRACTThis article offers a fresh assessment of the current condition of ‘culturalist’ international history, exploring its achievements and limitations, taxonomising its key threads and charting an agenda for the future. It argues that at its heart lie two core concerns, one with narratives and the other with bodies. Thinking in this way allows us both to tie together work which initially appears disparate – endowing a bewilderingly diverse mass of scholarship with coherence and shape – and to better grasp the project's current trajectory. It analyses how these two issues rose to prominence, discussing not only the merits and failings of previous ‘culturalist’ work but also linkages with shifting debates in historical theory in the aftermath of the ‘postmodern’ turn. It explores the contours of the important work currently being conducted under these rubrics, drawing attention where appropriate to cognate scholarship in the discipline of International Relations with which international historians might profitably engage. Understanding the significance of these two core concepts provides vital orientation in contemporary intellectual debates within international history and enables us to push them on further.

The Construction of the League of Nations Secretariat. Formative Practices of Autonomy and Legitimacy in International Organizations

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the formative staffing practices of the League of Nations Secretariat. Drawing on the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu, it argues that core traits of the League's institutional capacity and identity was produced through the institutionalization of recruitment practices in the League's formative years from 1919 to 1923. Through an exploration of early negotiations and practices of staffing, we show how the League built and balanced legitimacy, by combining a clearly international make-up of the League Secretariat with acute sensitivity to state interests, and autonomy, by defending the Secretary-General's exclusive prerogative of staffing, in a way that has been defining for the trajectory of international organizations (IOs) until today. The article thus turns to the institutional landscape where the individual and its surroundings meet: through the daily staffing practices of the Secretariat, it explores how an institution came to be, function and assert its influence as an autonomous and legitimate diplomatic agent in a broader international field. As such, the article, as an innovative contribution to the field, argues that international historians should connect thorough institutional investigations with elements of the ‘cultural turn’ in International History, in order to properly engage with and understand IOs as diplomatic actors.

SKYHAWK, SKYSHIELD, AND THE SOVIETS: REVISITING CANADA'S COLD WAR

AbstractFor the past two decades, Canadian international historians have largely missed the Cold War, or at least a significant portion of it. Certainly, there has been no shortage of studies of Canadian foreign policy featuring the bipolar struggle, and yet historians have largely confined their attention to Canada's admittedly crucial relationship with the United States, while Canadian–Soviet relations have been ignored. Indeed, in the historiography of Canada's Cold War international relations, the communist powers are largely missing. Hoping to challenge this limited focus, we frame our article around two Canada–US air defence exercises held in 1959 and 1960. While historians have viewed these exercises within the context of Canada's relationship with the United States, we highlight the wider Cold War framework in which Canadian policy was formed. After all, these exercises occurred during the mini-détente of the late 1950s and the collapse of the Paris summit in May 1960. As we demonstrate, the failure to take full account of the Cold War is a shortcoming of much of the writing on Canadian international relations, and so we offer an example of the need to take seriously Canada's foreign policy toward the communist bloc.

Toward Canada in the World: Thoughts on the future of Canadian Foreign Policy History

As a field of study, Canadian Foreign Policy history has been on life support for the better part of three decades. While its resiliency speaks to the commitment of its practitioners, the fact that Canadian international history has largely been sidelined is troubling given both the field’s importance generally and its appeal to undergraduate students and the wider public. Yet, at the same time as Canadian Foreign Policy history has been in stasis, a new field examining Canadian interactions with the world through transnational and cultural lenses has arisen. As the apocryphal Chinese proverb puts it, this situation presents both danger and opportunity for Canadian international history. In this article I explore how Canadian international historians might seize the initiative by crafting a new, expansive field of study—Canada in the World—which preserves the study of Canadian Foreign Policy while incorporating other analytical approaches.

The War of Seduction: The Anglo-American Struggle to Engage with the Portuguese Ruling Elite (1943–1948)

ABSTRACTEmotions and perceived cultural differences have only recently been subject to sustained attention from international historians. By tracing the role of personal politics in Anglo-American relations with Portugal in the mid-1940s, this paper intends to introduce hitherto neglected culturalist approaches into the historiography. The purpose is to illustrate the importance of cultural factors to scholarly explanation of Anglo-American relations and rivalries, of the decline of British influence over Lisbon and of the continuation of the authoritarian Portuguese regime after the Second World War, albeit integrated into an American sphere of influence.

Ida Blom in Memoriam

Ida Blom, who died on 26 November 2016 at the age of 85, was a highly respected historian and gender researcher. Both Nordic and international feminist historians are heavily indebted to her. As a ...

Everyday Magic in Early Modern Europe (Kathryn A. Edwards, ed.)

<i>Everyday Magic in Early Modern Europe</i> (Kathryn A. Edwards, ed.)

Systems and Boundaries in International History

ABSTRACTThe recent transnational, global, and cultural turns have challenged international historians to reconsider the approach, purpose, and value of their field. Although the new trends are beneficial to the extent that they challenge the premise that the nation-state should be the primary framework of historical inquiry, the boundaries of international history have expanded too far, and the cultural turn's preoccupation with national discourses at the expense of international structures and processes is diverting the field away from the analysis of the causes of war and the conditions of peace. The author argues that international history should distinguish itself from global and transnational history by drawing clear yet open disciplinary boundaries. Every field of inquiry needs some consensus about what it is, where it is going and why: in other words, an identity, purpose, and values. The author argues that what defines international history is its focus on the origins, structures, processes, and outcomes of international politics, above all the causes of war and the conditions of peace.

The Paris Peoples' Tribunal and the Istanbul Trials: Archives of the Armenian Genocide

AbstractThe decisions of international courts and tribunals affect how we read history. Alternative tribunals, such as peoples’ tribunals, attempt to write alternative histories to counter the official versions. This article locates controversies over the Armenian genocide in debates about the relationship between history and international law. It considers ways of reading archives and the role of archives in informing those debates. It compares the Istanbul war crimes trials held in 1919–1920 before the Ottoman Military Tribunals with the Paris session of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal held in 1984 that dealt with questions of history and memory through the juridical format of a hearing. A century after the events of 1915, the contested historiography of the Armenian genocide influences how international lawyers and historians seek to pass judgment on the past.