New Books in Diplomatic History

Lauren Turek is an Assistant Professor of History at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. She earned her doctorate from the University of Virginia in 2015 and holds a degree in Museum Studies from New York University. A specialist in U.S. diplomatic history and American religious history, Dr. Turek’s first book, titled To Bring the Good News to All Nations: Evangelical Influence on Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Relations (Cornell University Press, 2020), examines the growth and influence of Christian foreign policy lobbying groups in the United States beginning in the 1970s.Turek specifically assesses the effectiveness of Christian efforts to attain foreign aid for favored regimes and to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on those nations that persecuted Christians and stifled evangelism. To Bring the Good News to All Nations offers a fascinating look into the politicization of the Christian Right, expanding our understanding from evangelical concerns over domestic concerns (like abortion and gay rights) to events around the globe.Chris Babits is an Andrew W. Mellon Engaged Scholar Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. He researches the intersecting histories of medicine, religion, and gender and sexuality and is currently working on his book about the history of conversion therapy in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this year the world marked the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. An occasion for mourning and reflection also offered a chance to reflect on the state of research about the genocide.Among the many books that were published in the past year, Joyce E. Leader's new book From Hope to Horror: Diplomacy and the Making of the Rwanda Genocide (Potomac Books, 2020) stands out. Leader was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Rwanda from 1991 through April 1994. As such, she was ideally positioned to witness Rwanda's slide into catastrophe. The book is an unusual combination of memoir, reflection and lessons learned. Leader offers a nuanced interpretation of the causes of the violence, one that supplements other secondary research. She also reflects on how we can apply the lessons of Rwanda to future conflicts.But most interesting are her own reflections on her experiences. Leader paints vivid pictures of what it was like to live in Rwanda before and at the very beginning of the genocide. And she is unusually honest and self-reflective about ways in which foreign diplomats could have acted differently. It's an important and valuable book.Kelly McFall is Professor of History and Director of the Honors Program at Newman University. He’s the author of four modules in the Reacting to the Past series, including The Needs of Others: Human Rights, International Organizations and Intervention in Rwanda, 1994, published by W. W. Norton Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The balance of power in nineteenth-century Europe was anchored on one end by the redoubtable Queen Victoria (1819 -1901), the doyenne of sovereigns, and at the opposite end by the autocratic Romanov dynasty — four successive emperors who ruled Russia during Victoria's own 63-year reign. Between these great powers lay the rising military power of Prussia, which concerned both Britain and Russia, and a decaying Ottoman Empire from which both hoped to benefit, as well as shipping routes vital to both countries' commercial and military interests. These and numerous other concerns made the relationship tense at the best of times. But Victoria's large family was also entangled with the Romanovs through the complicated web of royal and dynastic marriages that linked the ruling houses of Europe.These political and personal ties are the subject of royal biographer, Coryne Hall's new book, Queen Victoria and the Romanovs: 60 Years of Mutual Distrust (Amberley, 2020). Ms. Hall is a seasoned royal biographer and chronicler, who has delighted royal buffs with her authoritative biographies of Empress Maria Fyodorovna, Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, and her exploration of royal Princesses who served as wartime nurses as well as the Imperial estates in the Crimea. In "Queen Victoria and the Romanovs," Ms. Hall delves into the extensive trove of Queen Victoria's diaries and personal correspondence to construct an ambitious and highly informative portrait of her six-decade relationship with the Romanovs, which is at times cordial and diplomatic and at other times overtly hostile.The first encounter takes place "off stage" as far as Victoria is concerned, but very much sets the stage for the tension to come. Victoria's aunt, Juliane of Saxe-Coburg Saalfeld's miserable marriage to Russia's Grand Duke Constantine ended — most extraordinarily for the time — in divorce. The Coburg family felt that Juliane had been very badly treated by the Romanovs, a sentiment that was inherited by the next generation of Coburgs, which included Victoria and her cousin and future husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg.Before Albert linked his name in perpetuity with that of Victoria, however, the 20-year-old Queen was swept off her feet — quite literally— by the dashing Grand Duke Alexander, son and heir of Tsar Nicholas I. On a visit to London in 1839, the Grand Duke made quite an impression on the young Queen; all thoughts of poor Aunt Julie and the prudent warnings of Lord Melbourne and Victoria's Coburg Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, were forgotten as Victoria indulged in champagne and her first "crush" on the future Tsar Alexander II.The heady attraction did not last. Though Nicholas I and Victoria exchanged courteous, diplomatic correspondence, they were destined to clash in one of the nineteenth century's most brutal conflicts: the Crimean War, in which the British prevailed and Nicholas was driven to an early grave.Coryne Hall is the author of 12 books, including A Biography of the Empress Marie Feodorovna 1847-1928, Imperial Dancer. Mathilde Kschessinska and the Romanovs, and Imperial Crimea: Estates, Enchantment & the Last of the Romanovs. Follow Coryne Hall on Twitter.Jennifer Eremeeva is an American expatriate writer who writes about travel, culture, cuisine and culinary history, Russian history, and Royal History, with bylines in Reuters, Fodor's, USTOA, LitHub, The Moscow Times, and Russian Life. She is the award-winning author of Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow and Have Personality Disorder, Will Rule Russia: A Pocket Guide to Russian History. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

China is a veto-holding member of the UN Security Council yet Chinese officials have been skeptical of using the powers of the UN to pressure nations accused of human rights violations. The PRC has emphasized the norm of sovereignty and rejected external interference in its own internal affairs. Yet they have supported UN intervention when states have been accused of mass human rights abuses. Why has China acquiesced and supported intervention? Neither realism or liberalism offer complete explanations for China’s seeming inconsistency. Courtney Fung finds that social constructions by way of public discourse of regime change matter when embedded in wider material conditions. She argues that anxieties about loss of status help explain China’s choices.In her new book China and Intervention at the UN Security Council: Reconciling Status (Oxford University Press, 2019), Fung explores three cases involving mass atrocities: Darfur (2004-2008), Libya (2011-2012), and Syria (2011-2015). China’s focus on status requires thinking about China’s twin statuses as both a great power and a developing state. China focuses on recognition from its intervention peer group: the Western, permanent members of the UN Security Council, US, UK, and France (P3). But China is also concerned with the Global South, which includes geographic-specific regional organizations and often the host state. Fung urges political scientists (and foreign policy experts implementing policy) to take “status triggers” in both peer groups seriously.Susan Liebell is associate professor of political science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She is the author of Democracy, Intelligent Design, and Evolution: Science for Citizenship (Routledge, 2013). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Fake news existed long before Donald Trump…. What is ironic is that fake news has indeed been the only news disseminated by the rulers of U.S. empire.”—From American Exceptionalism and American Innocence (Skyhorse Publishing, 2019).According to Robert Sirvent and Danny Haiphong, Americans have been exposed to fake news throughout our history—news that slavery is a thing of the past, that we don’t live on stolen land, that wars are fought to spread freedom and democracy, that a rising tide lifts all boats, that prisons keep us safe, and that the police serve and protect.Thus, the only “news” ever reported by various channels of U.S. empire is the news of American exceptionalism and American innocence. And, as this book will hopefully show, it’s all fake.Did the U.S. really “save the world” in World War II? Should black athletes stop protesting and show more gratitude for what America has done for them? Are wars fought to spread freedom and democracy? Or is this all fake news?American Exceptionalism and American Innocence examines the stories we’re told that lead us to think that the U.S. is a force for good in the world, regardless of slavery, the genocide of indigenous people, and the more than a century’s worth of imperialist war that the U.S. has wrought on the planet.Sirvent and Haiphong detail just what Captain America’s shield tells us about the pretensions of U.S. foreign policy, how Angelina Jolie and Bill Gates engage in humanitarian imperialism, and why the Broadway musical "Hamilton" is a monument to white supremacy.Danny Haiphong is a socialist activist, writer, and political analyst.Kirk Meighoo is a TV and podcast host, former university lecturer, author and former Senator in Trinidad and Tobago. He hosts his own podcast, Independent Thought & Freedom, where he interviews some of the most interesting people from around the world who are shaking up politics, economics, society and ideas. You can find it in the iTunes Store or any of your favorite podcast providers. You can also subscribe to his YouTube channel. If you are an academic who wants to get heard nationally, please check out his free training at becomeapublicintellectual.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the Sultan’s Realm: Two Venetian Reports on the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2018) is Professor Eric Dursteler’s translation of two final diplomatic reports (relazione) that Venetian ambassadors delivered upon their return to that Most Serene Republic at the turn of the seventeenth century—Lorenzo Bernardo in 1590 and Ottaviano Bon in 1609. These were polished and summative works performed before the assembled government of Venice detailing the politics and culture of the Ottoman Empire and its dealings with other powers. They offer insight about the work—and sometimes game—of early modern diplomacy; they aspire to a explain the character and spirit of the Sultan and his empire, in the process revealing even more about Venice and her agents.In this discussion, Professor Dursteler describes the early modern Mediterranean world, its arrangement and political issues, and its changes in the wake of the Battle of Lepanto (1571). He also talks about slavery, corsairs and piracy, and the Ottoman devşirme system (“blood tax” or “child levy”) that enslaved children from tributary states into its imperial administration, military, and harem. At the same time, this integration of cultures contributed to the multi-national and cosmopolitan empire (or ‘composite state’) unlike any other in the Mediterranean. Dursteler discusses gender and sex in the imagination of Early Modern Venice and in the cultural memory of both the West and East, and how it has changed. Finally, Dr. Dursteler invites us to think comparatively about early modern fears of the plague, and our current crisis—this was recorded in April of 2020—of pandemic.Eric Dursteler is Professor of History at Brigham Young University.Krzysztof Odyniec is a historian of the Early Modern Spanish Empire specializing in culture, diplomacy, and travel. He completed his PhD in 2017 at UC Berkeley where he is now a Visiting Scholar and a Fellow in the Berkeley Connect in History program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you haven’t been able to tell by the way I pronounce the word “about,” I should probably let you know that I’m from Canada. And I have to make a confession––growing up in Vancouver, I was fed the line that Canadian history was dull, that it lacked drama (i.e. no revolutionary war against England), and so my historical attention was always drawn to the US. It wasn’t until I was deep into college that I began to think otherwise. And, as a result, I know far too little about my country’s history.Asa McKercher’s superb new book, Canada and the World since 1867 (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2019), is a strong rebuttal to the Canadian-history-is-boring thesis. Surveying the history of Canada’s relations with the rest of the world, the book tracks Canada long decolonization from Britain, its ugly campaign against First Nations communities to take territory and move settlers westward, and how it dealt with having a superpower for a neighbour. The book should not be read, however, just by Canadians or Canadian historians, however. In examining the history of a medium-sized state’s foreign policy, McKercher’s book helps us understand how the international system itself works.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

In her new book, West Germany and Israel: Foreign Relations, Domestic Politics and the Cold War (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Carole Fink examines the relationship between West Germany and Israel. By the late 1960s, West Germany and Israel were moving in almost opposite diplomatic directions in a political environment dominated by the Cold War. The Federal Republic launched ambitious policies to reconcile with its Iron Curtain neighbors, expand its influence in the Arab world, and promote West European interests vis-à-vis the United States. By contrast, Israel, unable to obtain peace with the Arabs after its 1967 military victory and threatened by Palestinian terrorism, became increasingly dependent upon the United States, estranged from the USSR and Western Europe, and isolated from the Third World. Nonetheless, the two countries remained connected by shared security concerns, personal bonds, and recurrent evocations of the German-Jewish past. Drawing upon newly-available sources covering the first decade of the countries' formal diplomatic ties, Carole Fink reveals the underlying issues that shaped these two countries' fraught relationship and sets their foreign and domestic policies in a global context.Carole Fink is Humanities Distinguished Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State UniversityCraig Sorvillo is a PhD candidate in modern European history at the University of Florida. He specializes in Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. He can be reached at craig.sorvillo@gmail.com or on twitter @craig_sorvillo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Austerlitz, Wagram, Borodino, Trafalgar, Leipzig, Waterloo: these are the battles most closely associated with the Napoleonic Wars. But how did this period of nearly continuous warfare affect the world beyond Europe? The immensity of the fighting waged by France against England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and the immediate consequences of the tremors that spread from France as a result, overshadow the profound repercussions that the Napoleonic Wars had throughout the world.In his new book The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History (Oxford University Press, 2020), Professor Alexander Mikaberidze of the department of History at Louisiana State University, argues that the Napoleonic Wars can only be fully understood with an international context in mind. France struggled for dominance not only on the plains of Europe but also in the Americas, West and South Africa, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Taking specific regions in turn, Professor Mikaberidze discusses major political-military events around the world and situates geopolitical decision-making within its long- and short-term contexts. From the British expeditions to Argentina and South Africa to the Franco-Russian maneuvering in the Ottoman Empire, the effects of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars would shape international affairs well into the next century. Skillfully narrated and deeply researched, here at last is the complete global history of the period, one that expands our contemporary view of the Napoleonic Wars and their role in laying the foundations of the modern world.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

One of the most divisive international issues in American politics today is over Israel and Palestine. The close ties between Israel and the United States are very strong and see considerable cooperation between the two countries. However, that cooperation is also challenged because of the status of the Palestinian people and growing concern over their human rights. This has led to increasingly bitter criticisms of Israel, on the one hand, and denunciations of Israel’s critics in the United States for perceived and real anti-Semitism on the other. It threatens to split apart certain groups in the Democratic Party, for example.Michael Fischbach’s Black Power and Palestine told one part of this history by examining how the issue of Palestine created fissures among black power and civil rights activists from the 1960s onward. Fischbach has now written an additional book examining the effects of the Israel-Palestine issue on domestic American politics with The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left (Stanford University Press, 2019). Fischbach examines the way that a host of groups on the American found themselves divided over which country they ought to support and how to fit that support into campaigns against imperialism or U.S. foreign policy. While most of the left ultimately shifted over to supporting Israel, today those same discussions are playing out in mainstream political parties.Zeb Larson is a recent graduate of The Ohio State University with a PhD in History. His research deals with the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. To suggest a recent title or to contact him, please send an e-mail to zeb.larson@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices