International history
Diplomatic history, or the study of statecraft, was central part of the professionalised discipline of history from the late 19th century onwards. Gradually its remit widened to take in other aspects of the relations between states such as economics, strategy, the domestic sources of foreign policy, ideology and propaganda, and by the 1960s this enlarged sub-discipline had become known as international history. Since then it has been criticised first by social and economic historians and later by cultural historians for its perceived preoccupation with policy-making élites as well as its archive-based empirical approach (criticism which many international historians have taken on board). Its boundaries have also been eroded by the development of military history and the growth of international relations as a subject area, as well as by the rise of global history.
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- Historians:
- Butterfield, Herbert
Carr, Edward Hallet
Gooch, George Peabody
Howard, Michael Eliot
Joll, James Bysse
Seton-Watson, Robert William
Steiner, Zara Shakow
Taylor, Alan John Percivale
Temperley, Harold William Vazeille - Institutions:
- Chatham House – The Royal Institute for International Affairs
- Themes:
- Global history
Military history
Political history
Related publications
- Jeremy Black and Karl Schweizer, 'The value of diplomatic history: a case study in the historical thought of Herbert Butterfield', Diplomacy and Statecraft, 17 (2006), 617–31
Roger Bullen, 'What is diplomatic history?', in What is History Today?, ed. Juliet Gardiner (London, 1988)
Caroline Kennedy-Pipe and Nicholas Rengger, 'BISA at thirty: reflections on three decades of British international relations scholarship', Review of International Studies, 32 (2006), 665–76
