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Global history lecture notes
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Complete and substantive lecture notes of Global History (GH) first year of IRO.
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GLOBAL HISTORYLECTURE 1-WHY STUDY GLOBAL HISTORY IN AN IP DEGREE?
- how present the past is
- IR book → Chapter 2 and 3
- Popular historical argument: considering the situation of conflict and religious, peace of Westphalia
for the middle east: why an old framework could work, foreign affairs, 10 October 2016 → what ‘s
wrong with this idea to apply this peace to the middle east?
- World more connected, people more educated and get to vote democracy as main system of
government
- We are in a world of sovereign states and not of empires
- Lots of reasons why is inappropriate
- Duck of Minerva → understanding historical conditions happen just when these conditions come to
an end- Hegel
- The owl of Minerva spread its wings only with falling of dusk (Hegel 1820) → understanding of
history can only happen once it has ended. Greek God only looks at owl at end of day → same for
Global History, we look at past to understand the future
- The 20 years crisis – there has always been a lot of history in IR, but there isn’t always a reflection
on what it means to use history properly
POPULAR HISTORICAL ARGUMENT
- Sykes-Picot: a secret agreement mainly between France and UK in 1916 about how to divide
the Ottoman empire lands in the middle East
- Creating borders of today’s Syria and Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries
- ISIS is saying that they do not recognize former borders – against the former colonial powers
- About situation in middle east today, an idea on how to bring peace to the region
- A former concept: Westphalian Peace (1648) for the Middle East: Why an Old Framework
Could Work (foreign Affairs, Oct 10 2016)
- Problem here though: today we have a more connected world, more actors in play today,
education has changed, democracies and peoples’ power; the idea of Westphalia was to
undermine Empires, but we don’t have those empires anymore today in the Middle East.
- Point out ISIS here is actually wrong
- France and UK drew different borders than ISIS is claiming to be taking down
Michael Axworthy, and Patrick Milton, “Westphalian Peace for the Middle East: why an old
framework could work”, foreign affairs, 10 October 2016
➔ What’s wrong with this peace?
- How present the past is in politics, to understand what people are claiming today
- Approach to history in IR es. Neorealism---- Middle way approaches ----poststructuralism
Neorealism Middle way approaches poststructuralism
Past is just a bunch of facts to constructivism, English school, Past: list of minor
test theories about the historical sociology, conceptual events that have huge
present. history, …). impact.
History as monochrome
flatland-always the same.
, Emphasis on continuities. Use history in some detail, try No discernable patterns
to establish patterns not just in history-always
random list different.
Emphasis on
discontinuities.
HISTORY
- The general study of the past, crucially a nonfictional account of the past
- Discovery and construction narratives about the past based on the evidence we have
- It is a craft, available evidence es. Manuscript, building, video, …
- History aspires to construct and tell stories about discovered evidence of the past
- Try to fit the evidence, tell a story, do your best with what you got as evidence
- Understand and explain past events by interpreting their meaning
- Order and structure in the middle of the past
- History develops arguments not stories, looking at concrete arguments, which believe is accurate
on the basis of the existing evidence
- Different levels of history within it:
METAHISTORY
- Emphasize regularity, patterns, development, meaning of history
- About big ideas
- The history Manifesto, Armitage, book
- The longue durée, Braudel → take long view of history to identify long term trends/patterns and
distinguish the contingent from the permanent
ANTIHISTORY
- The idea that when we speak of history, fiction and non-fiction are identical
- Particularly relevant concept in age of “fake news” and “post truth” ex. The holocaust never
happened
- Closely relate to relativism→ there is no truth out there and all narratives are equal
- Extreme relativists turn to what they find the most useful fictions for their own purposes
- Antihistory is fiction and speculation, hit history proper
BIG HISTORY VS GLOBAL HISTORY
BIG HISTORY
- also called universal history and someone world history
- History of the world since the big bang
- Integrates natural science, es. Cosmology, biology, ...
GLOBAL HISTORY
- Not the same as big history, sometimes also called world history
- Is the story of connections within the global human community
- Look beyond single country/region ad into development connected whole
- Human world full of implications
- Crucial GH insight for IR: the human world comprises a multiplicity of co-existing societies
- Implications of multiplicity:
,- 1. Co-existence
- 2. Difference→ different environment, national, due to region, culture, language etc.
- 3. Interaction → es. Collaboration, between societies in war, trade, etc.
- 4. Combination → society developed also because of interaction with other societies, societies
don’t develop internal
- 5. Dialectical change → you get emphasis for interact together es. 1620, compass, printer, →
invented all in China, change to the modern order, interaction between 2 different societies create
new elements, interact with the outside world → dialectical changes es. Thing comes from place A
that people used to do X travels to place B and begins to be used there to do Y. Creation of Y changes
world.
LECTURE2
THE RISE AND FALL OF EU EMPIRES WITHIN A GLOBAL CONTEXT
INTRODUCTION
- NY city flag→ similar to the original flag of the NL. It was colonized by the NL
- Symbol of the flag, classic Dutch mill in the middle, symbols of Manhattan, 1625, new Amsterdam
established there that became NY.
- Apartheid in South Africa → colonized by NL. System established in SA after 2WW. Continuity
between the 2, es. Sign in both Dutch and English
- City of Jakarta → capital of the Dutch east. Old Batavia, roman nae for the NL, old buildings typical
colonial EU architecture. → idea to shoe the power of the colonizer
- Extremely white impact geographically of the Dutch empire
- Imperial expansion:
- 1. Process of destruction-→ language, library, culture, …
- 2. Process of creation → new cities, rules, …
- 3. Major consequences to this day → es. Spanish language spoken in Latin America, mass migration
es. From Africa to EU, Palestinian mass migration, giant economic rift between global north and
global south
THE IMPORTANCE OF EU EMPIRES IN MODERN IR
THE GEOGRAPHICAL SCOPE OF EU EMPIRES
- British empire controlled so much of population, 1997 ended
- Biggest empire that ever existed
- EU empires used to control almost the entire world
THE CHRONOLOGICAL SCOPE OF EU EMPIRES
- EU imperialism begins in 1492 → discovery of America
- Gradually colonized the world by EU
- Decolonization, after 2ww, mostly 1950s-1970s (some exception i.e. Latin America in early 1800s)
- EU imperialism plays important role, is shaping face of the world up to few decades ago
BROADENING THE FOCUS OF IR
- Extension of the empire and the collapse
- Modern history: 1400 to now
- “state” is the basic unit of IR → relationship between empires and societies is important to
understand history, instead of between states es. Italy-Ethiopia, France-Algeria
, - Concept of anarchy is becoming less useful → newfound interest in the history of empires, anarchy
concept not useful, need to talk about the existence of a superiority in the colonial capitals, of
autarchy es. London and Amsterdam → relationship between societies
→The state isn’t a basic unit in IR
WHAT IS AN EMPIRE
- Is a large composite, multi-ethnic or multinational political unit, usually created by conquest, and
divided between a dominant centre and subordinate, sometimes far distant peripheries
EMPIRE CORE CHARACTERISTICS:
- 1. Direct (centralized) → central government (control taxes, collection money, military, …) es.
London, rules direct and indirect, ruling over another land through a local government
(decentralized) rule
- 2. Established and maintained by violence es. Extreme violence, empires responsible for mass
genocides in history
- 3. Dominant “core” economically exploiting the “periphery” (could be far, like a neighbour country),
most EU countries wanted an empire bc a good way to generate wealth
- New lands→ raw materials→ exploit cheap slave labour that is available from the natives of the
colonies
- 4. Cultural difference between people at core and periphery, belief in superiority of culture by
people at core Es. Civilisation
- 5. EU empires associated with racial hierarchies and racist beliefs – Stoddard, The rising tide of
colour against white world supremacy- racial way of thinking about the world
JUST SOME EXTREMES?
- The ancestor of Foreign Affairs was the Journal of race development (emerged in1922)→ people
thought in racial terms that was important in the way people interpreted power politics and IR in
that period as a result of the EU idea
- Kipling author
THE “WHITE MAN’S BURDEN”
- Call to the US to encourage their development → racial hierarchies
- mass movement of people, through by voluntary migration es. Settler colonialism and forced
migration (slave trade)→ process of creating at the cost of people who already lived there
- Settler colonialism, during most of the EU imperialism, people were migrating from the core to the
periphery but with the collapsing of the empire people from the periphery to the core in the search
of better working conditions es. Millions of Africans to move to the Americas
EMPIRE, IMPERIALISM, COLONIALISM
- Empire (definition over)- the actual unit
- Imperialism: the actions and attitudes which create or uphold such big political unit, or less
obviously kinds of control/domination
- Colonialism: system of rule, by one group over another, where the first claims the right to exercise
exclusive sovereignty over the second and to shape its destiny
- Es. SA- internally
- Colonization: large-scale population movements, where the migrants maintain strong link with their
or their ancestors’ former country and when by doing so, they gain significant privileges over other
inhabitants of the new territory
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