Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles) ISSN (Print) 0145-2096 - ISSN (Online) 1467-7709 Published by Oxford University Press[412 journals]
Authors:Foster A; Goedde P. Pages: 183 - 183 Abstract: In this issue of Diplomatic History, we introduce a new category of articles called Concepts. Essays in this category address methodological, conceptual, or historiographical issues of broad relevance to our field. They are idea-driven rather than primarily grounded in original research. They offer a chance to take stock of the state of the field and introduce new approaches within our field as well as developments in other fields that might be of interest to historians of American foreign relations. PubDate: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhaa001 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Manela E. Pages: 184 - 209 Abstract: For some time now, historians have been venturing well beyond the spatial and methodological enclosures of nation-states that had long defined the modern discipline, writing more history that is variously described as international, transnational, transregional, global, or world history.11 This essay sets out to examine one aspect of the turn away from methodological nationalism—which is the assumption that the nation-state is the natural frame for the study of history—an aspect that has often been described as the emergence of a “new international history.”22 The term “international history” has had a rather complicated history in the U.S. historical profession, where it has been rather uncommon and, when used, has carried meanings that have often been broad and imprecise.33 More common in usage have been terms that seemed to carry meanings that were better specified: diplomatic history, the history of foreign relations, or occasionally, the history of international relations.44 But while the genealogy of the “new international history” is rooted in these historiographical traditions, it has gone beyond them in some important ways. The essay begins by tracing this genealogy and surveying the longstanding debates over crisis and renewal in the field of diplomatic/international history, and then traces the various strands of the new international history as it has emerged in the past twenty years or so. In its second part, it outlines a proposal for redefining and refocusing the field of international history as the history of “international society,” with that term understood to describe not simply an arena for where state actors interact but rather a historical subject in its own right, one that comprises actors and institutions of numerous types, both state and non-state, and invites scholarship that employs a diverse array of methodological approaches. The essay concludes with a discussion of the advantages, possible pitfalls, and methodological challenges that are involved in writing the history of international society. It draws its examples primarily from the literature on the history of the United States in the world, but the conceptual frame it lays out should prove useful, too, to scholars of international history that is centered elsewhere, or nowhere in particular. PubDate: Mon, 17 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz071 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Kohl M. Pages: 210 - 236 Abstract: While the Chaco War (1932–1935) was fought between Bolivia and Paraguay over the disputed Chaco territory, it is remembered in Latin America as a war precipitated and financed by U.S. imperial interests, specifically the Standard Oil Company. This enduring, yet unfounded, narrative sought to make sense of the seemingly illogical: that at the height of the Great Depression two of the hemisphere’s poorest countries sparked the largest international conflict in twentieth-century Latin America over a sparsely-populated and resource-poor region.11 Despite Bolivia’s early advantage in military capacity, lack of experience and infrastructure in this notoriously inhospitable environment yielded, in the words of historian Herbert Klein, “a corrupt, bloody, and bottomless defeat and disaster for Bolivia.”22 At a staggering human and financial toll of nearly 60,000 casualties and $200 million, Bolivia lost the majority of the region by the war’s end.33 But, as early as 1933, rumors circulating throughout the region alleged, according to the New York Times, that Bolivia was “enjoying the political support of the United States, the financial support of big American interests and the moral support of the American people.”44 While these rumors might otherwise have been short-lived, lasting only as long as Bolivian victories, a series of four U.S. Senate speeches made by an isolationist senator from Louisiana in May and June of 1934 and January of 1935 were taken by many Latin Americans as an admission of guilt from within the U.S. empire. Despite the relative insignificance of Standard Oil’s investments in Bolivia as compared to its investments elsewhere and despite Bolivia’s crushing losses, the notion that Standard Oil was financing the Bolivian war effort assumed the aura of truth.55 PubDate: Mon, 03 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz070 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Tobin C. Pages: 237 - 264 Abstract: In an interview with French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur in January 1998, former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski recounted that “according to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, kept secret until now, is quite different: Indeed, it was on July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.” This admission—corroborating previous disclosures by the CIA’s Charles Cogan and Robert Gates—was quite innocuous on its own, but Brzezinski was further quoted alleging that “on that day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid would lead to a Soviet military intervention.” He admitted that the administration had “knowingly increased the probability” that the Soviets would intervene militarily, and maintained that he had no regrets as the “secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.” He added that on the “day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, in essence: ‘We now have the opportunity of giving the USSR its Vietnam War,’” and boasted that “for almost ten years, Moscow had to wage an unbearable war for the regime, a conflict that led to the demoralization and ultimately the breakup of the Soviet empire.”11 PubDate: Thu, 09 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz065 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Delehanty S. Pages: 289 - 314 Abstract: On February 5, 1967, the leadership of the young nation of Tanzania made a bold statement that it was prepared to chart a new course towards development and modernity. The Arusha Declaration, delivered by President Julius Nyerere to the Executive Council of the Tanzanian African Nation Union (TANU), was intended to be a powerful articulation of aims and principles for the nation of Tanzania and its people. The Declaration opened with the simple statement that “the policy of TANU is to build a socialist state,” before laying out the principles behind Tanzanian socialism and TANU party membership.11 To accomplish this core mission of building socialism in Tanzania, Nyerere and the TANU instructed the nation, “Let us pay heed to the peasant,” arguing that equitable development, free of exploitation, could only be achieved if the nation focused on its small farmers in the countryside.22 From this new attention to the peasants, Nyerere would formulate a development plan based around a concept known as ujamaa, a Swahili word that can be translated as “family-hood.” In practical terms, ujamaa would take the form of collective villages in which rural peasants would voluntarily come together to form a communal farm. These new villages would be organized along the lines of a socialism that Nyerere claimed to be deeply rooted in African history and tradition.33 PubDate: Mon, 10 Feb 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz074 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Nishikawa M. Pages: 315 - 336 Abstract: On December 26, 2018, the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced it would end its participation in the International Whaling Commission (IWC). While Japanese national parliamentarians who belonged to the pro-whaling caucus welcomed the decision to resume commercial whaling, the decision faced condemnation.11 For example, the New York Times noted that Japanese authorities ought to reconsider the decision as “[w]ithdrawing from the whaling commission for short-term political gain is a dangerous and foolish move, especially for an advanced country like Japan that has generally supported multilateral efforts on the environment.”22 Kumao Kaneko, a retired Japanese diplomat who had dealt with the whaling issue as a delegate to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) in 1972, regarded the decision with displeasure: “Japan has not learned anything from the shock it experienced at the UNCHE, which I still cannot forget.”33 PubDate: Thu, 09 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz062 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Verney M. Pages: 337 - 364 Abstract: Passed Midshipman Lardner Gibbon had just sat down to dinner when he found himself subject to an interrogation. As one of two U.S. naval officers conducting an exploring expedition of the Amazon River Valley, Gibbon had split off from his commander in Peru in July 1851 in order to survey the Bolivian tributaries of the great river.11 Now, during a lively supper at a private home in La Paz, Gibbon had planted himself right next to the “lady of the house.”22 He may have wished that he had sat elsewhere; his hostess expressed great interest in U.S. expansionism, peppering Gibbon with questions about the annexation of northern Mexico and his nation’s designs on Cuba. “Turning suddenly,” Gibbon remembered, “she looked up and said: ‘What are you doing here, Senor Gibbon; do you want Bolivia, also'’” Gibbon explained that his mission was solely to help the Bolivians find an easier route to foreign markets. Though his Bolivian companion “approved of the enterprise,” she ended the conversation by exclaiming that the “North Americans will some day govern the whole of South America!”33 PubDate: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz067 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Schachter J. Pages: 376 - 378 Abstract: WinslowRachel Rains. The Best Possible Immigrants: International Adoption and the American Family.Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. 312 pp. $45.00 (hardcover). PubDate: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz073 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Kuzmarov J. Pages: 379 - 380 Abstract: KimMonica. The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War: The Untold History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. 452 pp. $35.00 (hardcover). PubDate: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz069 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Miles S. Pages: 381 - 383 Abstract: ThompsonJenny and ThompsonSherry. The Kremlinologist: Llewellyn E. Thompson, America’s Man in Cold War Moscow. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. 600 pp. $39.95 (paperback). PubDate: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz072 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Catton P. Pages: 383 - 386 Abstract: GawthorpeAndrew J.. To Build as Well as Destroy: American Nation Building in South Vietnam.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. 258 pp. $45.00 (hardcover). PubDate: Fri, 17 Jan 2020 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz068 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2020)
Authors:Kitamura H. Pages: 265 - 288 Abstract: In April 1956, the beautiful but seldom known countryside of Nara prefecture in Japan turned into a site of international attention. On site were a total of thirty-eight cast and crew members from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)—a leading Hollywood studio—scrambling to shoot their upcoming film: The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956, hereafter Teahouse).11 Based on a critically acclaimed novel that turned into a multi-award-winning Broadway play, Teahouse told a story about a U.S. occupation team’s efforts to “democratize” Okinawa during the early aftermath of World War II. The narrative features Glenn Ford as a newly appointed U.S. officer, working alongside an Okinawan translator performed by Marlon Brando, who appears in heavy yellowface make-up. Attending to them was Japanese film star Kyō Machiko, gracefully strolling and dancing as a kimono-clad geisha. Surrounding the three stars were dozens of local actors, extras, and staff, sometimes overseen by journalists and fans who gathered eagerly to witness this Hollywood spectacle unfold thousands of miles away from the United States.22 PubDate: Thu, 19 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz059 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2019)
Authors:Keys B. Pages: 365 - 367 Abstract: Cotey MorganMichael. The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 424 pp. $33.00 (hardcover). PubDate: Wed, 18 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz061 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2019)
Authors:Levey Z. Pages: 368 - 370 Abstract: KaplanAmy. Our American Israel: The Story of an Entangled Alliance.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. 368 pp. $29.95 (hardcover). PubDate: Wed, 18 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz060 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2019)
Authors:Chung P. Pages: 373 - 375 Abstract: MadsenGrant. Sovereign Soldiers: How the U.S. Military Transformed the Global Economy After World War II. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. 344 pp. $45.00 (hardcover). PubDate: Wed, 18 Dec 2019 00:00:00 GMT DOI: 10.1093/dh/dhz063 Issue No:Vol. 44, No. 2 (2019)
Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
[412 journals]
