New Books in Diplomatic History

In his book From Slaves to Prisoners of War: The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law (Oxford University Press, 2018), Will Smiley examines the emergence of rules of warfare surrounding captivity and slavery in the context of Ottoman-Russian military rivalry between 1700 and 1878. This remarkably well-researched and carefully argued monograph uncovers a vibrant inter-imperial legal regime, challenging many conventional narratives about the expansion of modern international law and the European states system. Its pages provide ample material with which we can rethink the supposed linear decline of Ottoman state power and the nature of pre-modern diplomacy, sovereignty, and governance in Eurasian empires.While traditional accounts of modern international law mainly focus on intellectual and political developments in the Western world, Smiley shows how two states on the European periphery worked out their own rules – their own international law governing the movement of captives, slaves, and prisoners of war across imperial frontiers. The story that emerges is not one of the Ottoman state’s joining an outside system of law. On the contrary, both in the eighteenth century and the even more challenging nineteenth, the Sublime Porte actively shaped the rules by which it was bound.Will Smiley is an Assistant Professor in the Humanities Program at the University of New Hampshire and a historian of Eurasia, the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, and international law.Vladislav Lilić  is a doctoral candidate in Modern European History at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on the place and persistence of quasi-sovereignty in late Ottoman and post-Ottoman Southeastern Europe. Vladislav’s other fields of interest include the socio-legal history of empire, global history of statehood, and the history of international thought. You can reach him at vladislav.lilic@vanderbilt.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two prominent Israeli liberals argue that for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to end with peace, Palestinians must come to terms with the fact that there will be no "right of return."In 1948, seven hundred thousand Palestinians were forced out of their homes by the first Arab-Israeli War. More than seventy years later, most of their houses are long gone, but millions of their descendants are still registered as refugees, with many living in refugee camps. This group―unlike countless others that were displaced in the aftermath of World War II and other conflicts―has remained unsettled, demanding to settle in the state of Israel. Their belief in a "right of return" is one of the largest obstacles to successful diplomacy and lasting peace in the region.In The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace (All Point Books, 2020), Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf―both liberal Israelis supportive of a two-state solution―reveal the origins of the idea of a right of return, and explain how UNRWA – an agency created for the Palestinians and not for the millions of other refugees - the very agency charged with finding a solution for the refugees – colluded with Palestinian, Arab and international political pressure to create a permanent “refugee” problem.Schwartz and Wilf make a compelling and well-documented argument that this Palestinian demand for a “right of return” has no legal, moral or historical basis and make an impassioned plea for the US, the UN, and the EU to recognize this fact, for the good of Israelis and Palestinians alike.Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a Jerusalem-based psychologist, Middle East television commentator, and host of the Van Leer Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel ttps://newbooksnetwork.com/category/van-leer-institute/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Historian and academic Roger Moorhouse, revisits the opening campaign of World War II, the German invasion of Poland in September 1939., in his new book Poland 1939: The Outbreak of World War II (Basic Book, 2020). Although the German invasion was the cause of the outbreak of World War II, oddly there has not been much by way of English language treatments of this pivotal historical episode. With this fine and highly readable narrative history, Moorhouse more than makes up for this omission. Combing English, German and crucially Polish language sources, Moorhouse reveals to the reader the German campaign from start to finish. Along the way showing that stereotypical Western images of the Polish army: cavalry charging tanks, are mythological in nature and inaccurate. Moorhouse also details for the reader the shameful refusal of the British and French governments to assist their Polish ally. Equally well illustrated is the Soviet Union’s invasion of Eastern Poland. With the Soviet mythology that the invasion was mostly ‘peaceful’ and well-received, just that: a myth. In short, Roger Moorhouse presents to the reader a highly interesting narrative history of an important historical episode. All from the author of Berlin at War and The Devil’s Alliance.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for Chatham House’s International Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Cold War, the on again and off again confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union is one of the most famous historical episodes of the short twentieth century. Accordingly, it is not surprising that the Cold War was an event which has divided historians since the beginnings of serious historiography on the subject began in the mid-1960s. With the chief points of contention being: who commenced it and why? When did it begin? How did the parameters of the confrontation between the two Super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union evolve if at all? And why did the seemingly interminable struggle between the two power blocs suddenly end in the Fall of 1989? To help explore these questions and to hopefully provide some answers, will be the topic of the next episode of Arguing History, where Professor Jeremy Black of Exeter University and Dr. Charles Coutinho of the Royal Historical Society explore these questions and more.Professor Jeremy Black MBE, Is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Exeter. And a Senior Associate at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. A graduate of Queens College, Cambridge with a First, he is the author of well over one-hundred & fifty books. In 2008 he was awarded the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Lifetime Achievement.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, and the University of Rouen’s online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1999, the Organization of African Unity cited dissatisfaction with the solely “global” approach that the UN had applied in their International Decade for Disabled Persons (1983–1992), and declared an African Decade of Persons with Disabilities (1999–2009) to explore “local” approaches.Was the UN’s approach truly detached from the ground reality? In this podcast, Sam De Schutter discusses his award-winning paper “A Global Approach to Local Problems? How to Write a Longer, Deeper, and Wider History of the International Year of Disabled Persons in Kenya” published in Brill’s Diplomatica, where he argues that to get to the truth historians must go beyond the global-local dichotomy. Sam de Schutter won the Brill/Diplomatica Mattingly Prize 2019 for this paper. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

War in Europe: 1450 to the Present (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) is a masterful overview of war and military development in Europe since 1450, bringing together the work of a renowned historian of modern European and military history in a single authoritative volume. Beginning with the impact of the Reformation and continuing up to the present day, Professor Emeritus at Exeter University, Jeremy Black discusses the following key theme in this truly splendid book:long-term military developments, notably in the way war is waged and battle conducted; the relationship between war and transformations in the European international system; the linkage between military requirements and state developments, the consequences of these requirements, and of the experience of war, for the nature of societyAdopting a clear chronological approach, Professor Black weaves a rich and detailed narrative of the development of war in relation to transformations in the European international system, demonstrating the links between its causes and consequences in the military, political and social spheres. Assimilating decades of important research as well as bringing new perspectives to the topic, War in Europe is a key text for students taking courses in European history, international relations and war studies and the lay educated public interested in early-modern and modern European history and military history.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for Chatham House’s International Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What brought about an end to the Cold War has long been a subject of speculation and mythology. One prominent argument is that the United States simply bankrupted the Soviet Union, outspending the Soviets on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or "Star Wars"). Renowned Soviet and Russian scholar, Professor Archie Brown in his latest work rejects any simple answers.In The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the End of the Cold War (Oxford UP, 2020), Brown focuses on the human element, and in particular on the main figures involved--Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher. His book looks at them both as individuals and as engaged in a dynamic that between 1985, when Gorbachev came to power and 1989, when Reagan left office, brought about not only an easing of East-West tensions but a great deal more. Brown cogently argues that the Cold War ended at an ideological level with Mikhail Gorbachev's speech at the United Nations in December 1988, when he announced that the people of every country had the right to choose their own government. The Cold War ended on the ground when the peoples of Eastern Europe took Gorbachev at his word in 1989 and Soviet troops were ordered to stay in their barracks.The standard narrative of the end of the Cold War--that it was won by the threat of American military power and spending--has underpinned support for the use of force in the Middle East (including the invasion of Iraq in 2003), the expansion of NATO, and advocacy of a hard line toward contemporary Russia. On the other side of the divide, the view that the United States set out to break up the Soviet Union and undermine Russia is widely accepted in Russia today and has led to a hardening of both domestic and foreign policy. Subversive of both of these narratives, Professor Brown's book will is set to become the standard work dealing with this highly important topic.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for Chatham House’s International Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the summer of 1960, the Republic of the Congo won its independence from Belgium. Only one week later, however, Belgium had already dispatched paratroopers into the country and the Congolese government was appealing to the United Nations to intervene and protect Congolese sovereignty. The ensuing crisis, as Alanna O’Malley writes in her deeply researched and important book, The Diplomacy of Decolonisation: America, Britain, and the United Nations during the Congo Crisis, 1960-1964 (Manchester University Press, 2020) “catapulted the Congo into the international consciousness.”The Diplomacy of Decolonisation examines the global contours of the Congo crisis, which fragmented the newly independent Republic of the Congo and rocked the international order in the early 1960s. It even led the United Nations, for the first time ever, to dispatch peacekeepers to protect the sovereignty of one of its member states against secessionists. O’Malley guides readers through this complicated story. She charts the sprawling geography of the crisis, pulling readers through foreign capitals, the United Nations, and the Congo itself. And she shows how the crisis transformed the Cold War and the politics of decolonization.Dexter Fergie is a PhD student of US and global history at Northwestern University. He is currently researching the 20th century geopolitical history of information and communications networks. He can be reached by email at dexter.fergie@u.northwestern.edu or on Twitter @DexterFergie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This fascinating book by Richard Carswell looks at how the fall of France in the Second World War has been recorded by historians and remembered within French society. The Fall of France in the Second World War: History and Memory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) argues that explanations of the 'debacle' have usually revolved around the four main themes of decadence, failure, constraint and contingency. It shows that the dominant explanation claimed for many years that the fall was the inevitable consequence of a society grown rotten in the inter-war period. This view has been largely replaced among academic historians by a sizable consensus that distinguishes between the military defeat and the political demise of the Third Republic. It emphasizes the various contingent factors that led to the military defeat of French forces by the Germans. At the same time seeks to understand the constraints within which France’s policy-makers were required to act and the reasons for their policy-making failures in economics, defence and diplomacy. This book makes for most interesting reading for both the academic world and for the lay-educated reader and university student.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written recently for Chatham House’s International Affairs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The history of the Cold War is littered with what-ifs, and in Diplomacy Shot Down: The U-2 Crisis and Eisenhower's Aborted Mission to Moscow, 1959–1960 (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020), Professor of History, E. Bruce Geelhoed of Ball State University explores one of the most intriguing: What if the Soviets had not shot down the American U-2 spy plane and President Dwight D. Eisenhower had visited the Soviet Union in 1960 as planned?In August 1959, with his second term nearing its end, Eisenhower made the surprise announcement that he and Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev would visit each other’s countries as a means of “thawing some of the ice” of the Cold War. Khrushchev’s trip to the United States in September 1959 resulted in plans for a four-power summit involving Great Britain and France, and for Eisenhower’s visit to Russia in early summer 1960. Then, in May 1960, the Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 surveillance plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers.The downing of Powers’s plane was, in Professor Geelhoed’s unorthodox recounting of this episode in Cold War history, not just a diplomatic crisis. The ensuing collapse of the summit and the subsequent cancelation of Eisenhower’s trip to the Soviet Union amounted to a critical missed opportunity for improved US-Soviet relations at a crucial juncture in the Cold War.In a blow-by-blow description of the diplomatic overtures, the U-2 incident, and the aftermath, Diplomacy Shot Down draws upon Eisenhower’s projected itinerary and unmade speeches and statements, as well as the American and international press corps’ preparations for covering the aborted visit, to give readers a sense of what might have been. Eisenhower’s prestige within the Soviet Union was so great, Geelhoed imaginatively observes, that the trip, if it had happened, could well have led to a détente in the increasingly dangerous US-Soviet relationship.Instead, the cancellation of Ike’s visit led to a heightening of tensions that played out around the globe and nearly guaranteed that the “missile gap” would reemerge as an issue in the 1960 presidential campaign. A detailed account, based almost entirely on American sources of an episode that some would say helped to define the Cold War for a generation, Diplomacy Shot Down is, in its narrative, something rarer still—a behind-the-scenes look at history in the unmaking.Charles Coutinho Ph. D. of the Royal Historical Society, received his doctorate from New York University. His area of specialization is 19th and 20th-century European, American diplomatic and political history. He has written for Chatham House’s International Affairs, and the University of Rouen’s online periodical Cercles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices