The Making of the Modern World
Lecture 2 – Historiography and International History
What is historiography?
Understanding why and how history is written.
The term can refer to a body of historical knowledge and debates about a
specific subject.
Classic historiographical debates that you will encounter including arguments
about WW1 and the origins of the Cold War.
Von Ranke’s ‘science’ of History
Historians had a duty to reveal “wie es eigntlich gewesen” (“what actually
happened”) and not to judge the past by the standards of the present.
He believed that Philology (the study of language in written sources) could be
the basis of a “scientific” historical method.
He established history as a professional, independent, academic, discipline.
Karl Marx, how history should have happened.
Marx prioritised material/economic factors in explaining social change over long
historical periods.
A teleological theory – meaning “history” has a purpose, a destination, or a goal.
For Marx, the goal was socialism, and this would be achieved through a particular
motor of change, class struggle.
The Whig Interpretation of History
English history as inevitable progress towards constitutional monarchy and
liberal parliamentary democracy.
Herbert Butterfield attacked Whig historians for reading history backwards and
assuming a continuous line of progress towards a glorious present.
The rise of Social and Cultural History
English Marxist school and French Annales School focused on social rather than
diplomatic history.
Feminism inspired a new “women’s history” and research into the histories of
domesticity, the family and sexuality.
Cultural and Postmodernist theories inspired research into the historical
construction of social identities.
Historical interest in gender (the construction of masculinities and feminities)
and race as well as class
Research into popular memory
,The expanding field of International History
The influence of domestic (nation/sub-national) factors upon the conduct of
international relations
Beyond the nation-state – a focus upon trans-national and non-governmental
factors (e.g., Charities and international crimes)
Identity politics: the impact of class, race and gender upon the course and
conduct of international politics
The impact of science and technological change upon international relations
Cultural influences upon international relations
Ideology and International History
Ideology: the idea-systems that compromise secular, universal principles
prescribing collective human arrangements.
Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism, Capitalism, Communism…
Beyond the nation-state
The networks, connections, and systems that cross traditional boundaries of
historical study like linguistic, culture and national borders.
International organizations: League of Nations, the United Nations etc.
Transactional organizations: Socialist International; Multinational corporations.
Non-state actors and NGOs: aid, development and
human rights organisations; environmental agencies
Protest and social movements.
Power, strategy, and war
Influence of social history – the relationship between war and society
The technological, industrial, economic, and logistical dimensions of military
power
Strategic history: the diplomatic role of force and the military part of foreign
policy
Intellectual history – how militaries learn and how they incorporate knowledge
into operational practice. An interest in “strategic culture.”
Indonesia: A Cold War camp
October 1965: Indonesia army leadership, under General Suharto, moved against
President Sukarno and the Indonesian Communist Party.
UK and US intelligence agencies backed Suharto and conducted operations
designed to “blacken the PKI in the eyes of the army and the people of
Indonesia.”
1965-66: killings of suspected communists. More than 500,000 died in what the
CIA called “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century”.
1967: Sukarno was removed from power.
, Suharto governed Indonesia as a dictatorship for three decades.
The secret worlds of Intelligence
Intelligence, espionage, and subversion as the “missing dimension” of
international politics
In the 1980s, historians of secret intelligence revolutionised our understanding of
WW2.
Imperialism, Race and Postcoloniality
In 1978, Edward Said identified “Orientalism” as a set of rules and practices that
determined how Western scholars have represented the east.
Criticised Orientalism as both “a product of European subjugation of the Middle
Wast and an instrument in this process.”
Catastrophe in Cambodia: Year Zero
1975: Cambodian civil war ended in victory for Pol Pot’s Maoist Khmer Rouge
movement
The Khmer Rouge systematically destroyed the professional middle classes in a
bid to create an
agrarian socialist utopia.
Urban centres were abandoned as the Cambodian population was forcibly
regimented into mobile work teams.
Torture, mass executions, starvation and disease killed 25% of the Cambodian
population (around 2 million deaths).
The genocide ended in 1979 following a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.
The Triumph and the tragedy of the “third world”
Why did the “Third World” matter?
“Had it not been for the existence of these new states, it is likely that the Cold
War conflict would have petered out sometime in the 1960s.
What prolonged the conflict was its extension into areas where US and Soviet
leaders convinced themselves that postcolonial states were theirs to win or lose”
(Westad)
Could “Third World” countries stay neutral in the Cold War struggle?
Did “Third World” states gain or lose from interacting with the Cold War blocs?
Communications, public opinion, and propaganda
19th to 20th century growth in the importance of public opinion
Mass media: newspaper, radio, television etc.
A growing number of historians explored the theme of public opinion and its
influence on international relations.
Lecture 2 – Historiography and International History
What is historiography?
Understanding why and how history is written.
The term can refer to a body of historical knowledge and debates about a
specific subject.
Classic historiographical debates that you will encounter including arguments
about WW1 and the origins of the Cold War.
Von Ranke’s ‘science’ of History
Historians had a duty to reveal “wie es eigntlich gewesen” (“what actually
happened”) and not to judge the past by the standards of the present.
He believed that Philology (the study of language in written sources) could be
the basis of a “scientific” historical method.
He established history as a professional, independent, academic, discipline.
Karl Marx, how history should have happened.
Marx prioritised material/economic factors in explaining social change over long
historical periods.
A teleological theory – meaning “history” has a purpose, a destination, or a goal.
For Marx, the goal was socialism, and this would be achieved through a particular
motor of change, class struggle.
The Whig Interpretation of History
English history as inevitable progress towards constitutional monarchy and
liberal parliamentary democracy.
Herbert Butterfield attacked Whig historians for reading history backwards and
assuming a continuous line of progress towards a glorious present.
The rise of Social and Cultural History
English Marxist school and French Annales School focused on social rather than
diplomatic history.
Feminism inspired a new “women’s history” and research into the histories of
domesticity, the family and sexuality.
Cultural and Postmodernist theories inspired research into the historical
construction of social identities.
Historical interest in gender (the construction of masculinities and feminities)
and race as well as class
Research into popular memory
,The expanding field of International History
The influence of domestic (nation/sub-national) factors upon the conduct of
international relations
Beyond the nation-state – a focus upon trans-national and non-governmental
factors (e.g., Charities and international crimes)
Identity politics: the impact of class, race and gender upon the course and
conduct of international politics
The impact of science and technological change upon international relations
Cultural influences upon international relations
Ideology and International History
Ideology: the idea-systems that compromise secular, universal principles
prescribing collective human arrangements.
Liberalism, Socialism, Fascism, Capitalism, Communism…
Beyond the nation-state
The networks, connections, and systems that cross traditional boundaries of
historical study like linguistic, culture and national borders.
International organizations: League of Nations, the United Nations etc.
Transactional organizations: Socialist International; Multinational corporations.
Non-state actors and NGOs: aid, development and
human rights organisations; environmental agencies
Protest and social movements.
Power, strategy, and war
Influence of social history – the relationship between war and society
The technological, industrial, economic, and logistical dimensions of military
power
Strategic history: the diplomatic role of force and the military part of foreign
policy
Intellectual history – how militaries learn and how they incorporate knowledge
into operational practice. An interest in “strategic culture.”
Indonesia: A Cold War camp
October 1965: Indonesia army leadership, under General Suharto, moved against
President Sukarno and the Indonesian Communist Party.
UK and US intelligence agencies backed Suharto and conducted operations
designed to “blacken the PKI in the eyes of the army and the people of
Indonesia.”
1965-66: killings of suspected communists. More than 500,000 died in what the
CIA called “one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century”.
1967: Sukarno was removed from power.
, Suharto governed Indonesia as a dictatorship for three decades.
The secret worlds of Intelligence
Intelligence, espionage, and subversion as the “missing dimension” of
international politics
In the 1980s, historians of secret intelligence revolutionised our understanding of
WW2.
Imperialism, Race and Postcoloniality
In 1978, Edward Said identified “Orientalism” as a set of rules and practices that
determined how Western scholars have represented the east.
Criticised Orientalism as both “a product of European subjugation of the Middle
Wast and an instrument in this process.”
Catastrophe in Cambodia: Year Zero
1975: Cambodian civil war ended in victory for Pol Pot’s Maoist Khmer Rouge
movement
The Khmer Rouge systematically destroyed the professional middle classes in a
bid to create an
agrarian socialist utopia.
Urban centres were abandoned as the Cambodian population was forcibly
regimented into mobile work teams.
Torture, mass executions, starvation and disease killed 25% of the Cambodian
population (around 2 million deaths).
The genocide ended in 1979 following a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.
The Triumph and the tragedy of the “third world”
Why did the “Third World” matter?
“Had it not been for the existence of these new states, it is likely that the Cold
War conflict would have petered out sometime in the 1960s.
What prolonged the conflict was its extension into areas where US and Soviet
leaders convinced themselves that postcolonial states were theirs to win or lose”
(Westad)
Could “Third World” countries stay neutral in the Cold War struggle?
Did “Third World” states gain or lose from interacting with the Cold War blocs?
Communications, public opinion, and propaganda
19th to 20th century growth in the importance of public opinion
Mass media: newspaper, radio, television etc.
A growing number of historians explored the theme of public opinion and its
influence on international relations.
