DRAFT

TOPICS IN THE HISTORY OF DIPLOMACY

VISIONS OF WORLD ORDER

NYU Florence - La Pietra Campus Dr. Anne-Isabelle Richard Fall Semester 2011

OVERVIEW

This course offers an introduction to international history from the late nineteenth until the beginning of the twenty first century. It will examine how visions of world order competed, co-existed and succeeded each other. The course will study and question the development of international relations from a Europe dominated concert of imperial nation states to a Cold War world of superpowers to an era of a hyperpower faced with the rise of new powers, such as China and India, as well as illusive international networks, such as Al Qaeda. The aim of the course is to familiarise students with key events in international history as well as trace the development of diplomacy, from meetings of Western diplomats, to the New Diplomacy, the proliferation of interest groups and the rise of international organisations. The course seeks to integrate events in the United States, Europe and the Soviet Union/Russia with developments in the ‘non-Western world’.

Every week a ‘gobbet’, a short excerpt from an original source, will be discussed. The aim of this exercise is to get a feeling for original sources, set them in context, understand this context and thus the importance of the gobbet for the theme. In combination with the weekly student presentation this exercise will serve to draw out the theme and start the class discussion.

Anthony Best (ed.), International history of the twentieth century and beyond (London 2008) will serve as a textbook for the course. The specialised readings for each week draw attention to major (historiographical) debates.

ASSESSMENT

Participation: 20% You are expected to complete the reading assignments on time, and to come to class prepared to discuss them. Regular, active and informed participation in class discussions is key.

Presentation: 20% Each student will give a short presentation on one of the topics to start the class discussion.

Gobbet: 20% Having practiced analysing gobbets, you will be given a ‘gobbet’ to analyse yourself. This will be due after the mid-term break.

Final Essay or Exam: 40% At the end of the semester you will be expected to write an essay (8-10 pages) on one of the themes discussed during the course or sit the exam, which will consist of essay questions.

1 DRAFT

WEEK 1 (5-9 SEPTEMBER)

Introduction

Reading: Marc Trachtenberg, The craft of international history: a guide to method (Princeton 2006). (Ch. 2). Anthony Best (ed.), International history of the twentieth century and beyond (London 2008). [check section] Sebastian Conrad and Dominic Sachsenmaier (eds.), Competing visions of world order. Global moments and movements, 1880-1930s (New York 2007). Chapter 1. , The rise and fall of the great powers. economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000 (London 1988). [check section] Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York 1994). [check section]

WEEK 2 (12-16 SEPTEMBER)

The old ‘liberal order’ revisited

Readings: Paul Kennedy, The rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860-1914 (London 1980). [check section] J.A. Hobson, Imperialism. A study (London 1902). Introduction, Ch. 6. Christian Geulen, ‘The common grounds of conflict: racial visions of world order 1880- 1940’, in: Sebastian Conrad and Dominic Sachsenmaier (eds.), Competing visions of world order. Global moments and movements, 1880-1930s (New York 2007) 69-97.

WEEK 3 (19-23 SEPTEMBER)

The debate on the origins of the First World War - in Europe and beyond?

Readings: James Joll, Gordon Martel, The origins of the First World War (Harlow 2007, 3rd ed.) [check section] William Mulligan, The origins of the First World War (Cambridge 2010). [check section] Fritz Fischer, ‘Twenty-five years later: Looking back at the ‘Fischer Controversy’ and its consequences’, Central European History (Vol. 21, no. 3 Sept. 1988) 207-233.

A choice of: Dominic , Russia and the origins of the First World War (Basingstoke 1983). [check section] Volker Berghahn, Germany and the approach of war in 1914 (1973). [check section] Zara Steiner, Britain and the origins of the First World (London 1977). [check section] John Keiger, France and the origins of the First World War (London 1983). [check section] Samuel Williamson, Austria-Hungary and the coming of the First World War (Basingstoke 1991). [check section] Add…

2 DRAFT

WEEK 4 (26-30 SEPTEMBER)

World War I

Readings: David Stevenson, The First World War and international politics (Oxford 1988). [check section] Kathleen Burk, Britain, America and the sinews of war, 1914-1918 (London 1985). [check section] Barbara Tuchman, The guns of August (New York (1962) 2000). [check section] Russian Revolution… The First World War in the colonies…

WEEK 5 (3-7 OCTOBER)

The interwar period

Readings: Zara Steiner, The lights that failed: European international history 1919-1933 (Oxford 2005). [check section] Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford 2007). (Ch. 1 and conclusion) Robert Boyce, The great interwar crisis and the collapse of globalization (Basingstoke 2009). (Introduction and conclusion) Patrick O. Cohrs, The unfinished peace after World War I: America, Britain and the Stabilisation of Europe, 1919-1932 Cambridge Mass. 2008). [check section] Michael Adas, ‘The Great War and the decline of the civilizing mission’, in L.J. Stears (ed.) Autonomous histories, particular truths (Madison 1993), 101-121.

WEEK 6 (10-14 OCTOBER)

The Second World War and its origins

Readings:

A choice of: A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War ().[check section] Richard Evans, The coming of the Third Reich (London 2003). [check section] Richard Evans, The Third Reich in Power, 1933-1939 (London 2005). [check section] David Reynolds, From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt's America and the Origins of the Second World War (2001). [check section]

Akira Iriye, The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific (Harlow 1987). [check section]

Mark Mazower, Dark Continent. Europe’s Twentieth Century (London 1998). (Ch. 5) David Reynolds (et al.), Allies at War: The Soviet, American and British Experience, 1939-45 (Basingstoke 1994). [check section] Christopher Bayly, Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: the fall of British Asia, 1941-1945 (London 2007). [check section]

3 DRAFT

WEEK 7 (17-21 OCTOBER)

The Post War Period: the Marshall Plan and the search for a new world system

Readings: Tony Judd, Postwar. A history of Europe since 1945 (London 2005). [check section] Michael Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947- 1952 (Cambridge 1987). (Ch. 2, 9). Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia. Human rights in history (Cambridge Mass. 2010). (Prologue, Epilogue) David Reynolds, From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt and the International History of the 1940s (Oxford 2006). [check section] Elizabeth Spalding, The First Cold Warrior: Harry Truman, Containment and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism (Kentucky 2006). [check section]

WEEK 8 (24-28 OCTOBER)

European Cooperation

Readings: Wolfram Kaiser, Antonio Varsori (eds.), History. Themes and Debates (Basingstoke 2010). [check section] Alan Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State (London 2000, 2nd edition). (Ch. 1, 2) Desmond Dinan, Europe recast: a history of the European Union (Basingstoke 2004). [check section]

WEEK 9 MIDTERM BREAK (31 OCTOBER - 4 NOVEMBER)

WEEK 10 (7-11 NOVEMBER)

Decolonization

Readings: Christopher Bayly, Tim Harper, Forgotten Wars. The end of Britian’s Asian Empire (London 2007). [check section] Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford 2002). [check section] Frederick Cooper, Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge 2002). [check section] Zaki Laidi, The Superpowers and Africa: The Constraints of a Rivalry, 1960-1990 (Chicago 1990), p. 1-31. Kwame Nkrumah, Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism (London 1974). (Ch. 18)

WEEK 11 (14-18 NOVEMBER)

The Global Cold War

Readings: Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World interventions in the making of our times (Cambridge 2005). [check section]

4 DRAFT

Michael Leifer, ASEAN and the security of South East Asia (London 1989). [check section]

WEEK 12 (21-25 NOVEMBER)

The Nuclear Arms Race

Readings: Beatrice Heuser, Nuclear Mentalities? Strategies and beliefs in Britain, France and the FRG (Basingstoke 1998). [check section] Add…

WEEK 13 (28 NOVEMBER - 3 DECEMBER)

The end of the Cold War

Readings: John Lewis Gaddis, We now know: rethinking the Cold War (Oxford 1997). [check section] Geir Lundestad, ‘Imperial overstretch, Mikhail Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War’, Cold War History (Vol. 1, no. 1, 2000) 1-20. Donald S. Zagoria, ‘The end of the Cold War in Asia: its impact on China’, Proceedings of the Academy of political Science (Vol. 38, no. 2, 1991) 1-11.

WEEK 14 (5-7 DECEMBER)

A new international order?

Readings: Francis Fukuyama, ‘The end of history?’, The National Interest (Summer 1989). Available at: http://www.wesjones.com/eoh.htm Samuel Huntingdon, ‘The clash of civilisations?’ Foreign Affairs (Summer 1993, vol. 72, no. 3) Timothy Garton Ash, Free world. why a crisis of the West reveals the opportunity of our time (London 2004). [check section] Add…

FINAL ESSAY OR EXAM (12-15 DECEMBER)

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