Resumen: Este artículo indaga sobre cómo llegó a aceptarse a Hobbes como una figura fundacional e... more Resumen: Este artículo indaga sobre cómo llegó a aceptarse a Hobbes como una figura fundacional en la historia del pensamiento internacional a causa de su afirmación de que el ámbito de las relaciones internacionales se asemeja a un estado de naturaleza habitado por agentes competitivos y atemorizados. El autor sostiene que las reflexiones de Hobbes sobre la dimensión externa del Estado son más amplias de lo que suele señalarse y realiza un estudio de la pervivencia de su pensamiento a partir del siglo XVII, demostrando que no fue hasta el siglo XX cuando adquirió tal preeminencia, como consecuencia del consenso alcanzado respecto al hecho de que el ámbito de las relaciones internacionales era ciertamente anárquico. Sin embargo, Hobbes no inspiró directamente esta concepción de las relaciones internacionales, sino que fueron sus partidarios quienes recurrieron a él para apoyar sus teorías, pues Hobbes opinaba que el estado de naturaleza interestatal no podía ser equiparado al interpersonal, dado que si bien los Estados podían ser tan temerosos y competitivos como los individuos en sus relaciones mutuas, no obstante, no eran tan vulnerables ni esta situación de anarquía impedía la cooperación internacional.
By the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the anglophone inhabitants of the Atlantic world... more By the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the anglophone inhabitants of the Atlantic world began for the first time habitually to describe their community as collectively British and structurally an empire. This 'British empire' included the United Kingdom of Great Britain (created by the Union of England and Scotland in 1707) and its dependencies within Europe, Britain's insular possessions in the West Indies, and the continental colonies of British North America. Sometimes, though not always, it also encompassed the slave stations, factories and forts of Africa and the East Indies. 1 This conception of a British empire demanded the union of a substantive idea of Britishness with a redefinition of inherited ideas of empire. The acquisition of such a conceptual vocabulary is a reliable indicator of a change in the selfconsciousness of a community. 2 'The concepts we have settle for us the form of the experience we have of the world ... That is not to say that our concepts may not change; but when they do, that means that our concept of the world has changed too'. 3 This is especially true when those concepts define the nature and limits of the community itself. In this case, British imperial ideology had to be sufficiently broad to encompass the pluralism of a multinational and multidenominational polity, while necessarily narrow enough to exclude those deemed unworthy of its political
During the late nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth, there was a burst of... more During the late nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth, there was a burst of interest in unifying the scattered members of the 'Anglo-Saxon race' or 'English-speaking peoples'. Though emanating principally from Britain, promotion of the Angloworld was at once transatlantic and transcolonial, drawing contributors from all the territories its proponents sought to unite. It assumed two principal forms. One focused on the consolidation of Britain and its remaining settler colonies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and (more ambivalently) southern Africa. This was the discourse of 'imperial federation'. The other main
The "rst editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), James Murray, delighted to tell the ... more The "rst editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), James Murray, delighted to tell the story of a dream in which he had overheard his great lexicographical predecessor, Samuel Johnson, in conversation with James Boswell, his biographer: J its proponents argue that the OED's coverage is so complete, and that its lexicographical principles are so congenial to historians, that it will do duty as an English GG for all foreseeable purposes. Murray would no doubt have been pleased by these plaudits, as he would surely have been intrigued by the GG. Like the OED, the GG has been a collective and collaborative enterprise, superintended by scholars with a commanding historical research programme; each was based on &historical principles', and each relied heavily on the use of quotations as the basis for its entries. However, both were products of their times and places, and of the particular research agendas on which they were
Originality and novelty define the modern script of revolution. That script was original in the s... more Originality and novelty define the modern script of revolution. That script was original in the sense that it had identifiable beginnings that have been precisely located in France in 1789. And it was novel because in that year " the French imagined a radical break with the past achieved by the conscious will of human actors, an inaugural moment for a drama of change and transformation projected indefinitely into the future. " After 1789, revolution in the singular replaced revolutions in the plural. What had been understood before 1789 as unavoidable features of nature, as predetermined astronomical cycles, or as eternal recurrences in human affairs became instead voluntary, transformative, and repeatable: revolution as fact gave way to revolution as act. With that daring feat of collective imagination, revolution became ineluctably political, covering primarily but not exclusively fundamental changes concerned with the distribution of power and sovereignty. In the years ...
Three intellectual historians review the debate on the (presumed) rebirth of intellectual history... more Three intellectual historians review the debate on the (presumed) rebirth of intellectual history that has opened up forty years ago. They point out how the discipline has been renewed thanks to a number of seminal books and articles, while preserving its trans-disciplinary methodological bases. And they discuss three main points: first, whether it is possible to talk about a real «rebirth» of the discipline, and why; second, whether the correlation between intellectual history and the history of ideas can be considered outdated, and what are its methodological implications; third, if the spatial turn has had an impact on intellectual history.
Big is back across a wide range of historical fields. Many historians are stretching space, to cr... more Big is back across a wide range of historical fields. Many historians are stretching space, to create international, transnational and global histories. Others are expanding time, to pursue Big History, Deep History and the history of the Anthropocene. What explains this broadening of horizons? And what does it mean for the future of history? This article makes a case for history as a discipline of social and political transformation amid crises of global governance, rising inequality, and anthropogenic climate change. I have been thinking a lot lately about the future of History. I am in the midst of a three-year term (2012-14, 2015-16) as Chair of the Harvard History Department and this has presented a great opportunity to think broadly, not just about the directions my own Department should be going in the next few years, but also about trends in the field, about the meaning of history-as a discipline rather than as a metaphysical force-and about the fate of the humanities more generally. 2 Unlike the benighted and bumbling head of department in Kingsley Amis's novel Lucky Jim (1953), who portentously answers his office phone, 'History speaking', I cannot claim to speak with the voice of history. However, I do want to reflect here on some of the purposes of History as an academic discipline. 3 1 Forthcoming in History Australia. This article is the revised text of a lecture given in various forms at the
Civil war seems to be at once everywhere and nowhere. By the late twentieth century, as interstat... more Civil war seems to be at once everywhere and nowhere. By the late twentieth century, as interstate warfare had almost vanished, civil war had become humanity's most destructive and most characteristic form of organised large-scale violence: in 2018, only two of the world's fifty-two active conflicts were between, rather than within, states. 1 However, there is a striking absence of sustained theoretical reflection on the topic and a more general failure to confront it as an enduring and ever-changing historical phenomenon. Even though concerns about civil war and its cognates can be found across the western canon of political and social thought from Aristotle (and before) to Agamben (and beyond), the subject lacks a work of synthesis for commentary to circle around in the manner of, say, Arendt's On Revolution. To fill this gap, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas (2017) offered what I called an 'unblinking encounter' with its terrifying topic, to account for its ubiquity and unmask its obliquity. None of my books has ever proved to be so timely, nor have I wanted one to be less topical. Civil Wars clearly struck a nerve; or perhaps it simply found its moment. I was both honoured and flattered that, in the months after publication, it rapidly inspired three academic roundtables, in London, Sydney and Cambridge, at which distinguished colleagues in a variety of fields, from classics and literature to international law and political theory, responded to its arguments and sought to extend them. 2 This symposium collects many of those reactions and adds some freshly commissioned ones: it thereby complements another equally wide-ranging published forum on the book. 3 Before engaging with the rich reflections in this critical symposium, I must warmly thank the organisers of the original events, Maksimilian Del Mar (
I am deeply grateful to the American Society of International Law—especially to its president, Lu... more I am deeply grateful to the American Society of International Law—especially to its president, Lucinda Low—and to the International Legal Studies Program at American University Washington College of Law—in particular, to the Dean of the College, Camille Nelson, and to its program director, David Hunter—for their generous invitation to deliver the nineteenth Annual Grotius Lecture. Grateful, but more than a little intimidated. Nobel laureates and heads of state, eminent judges and leading diplomats have given this distinguished lecture, but never, I think, a humble historian. As Isaac Newton might have said were he in my shoes, “[i]f I can see far, it is because I stand on the shoulders of these giants.”
Após décadas de aversão e esquecimento, historiadores de todos os quadrantes começam a regressar ... more Após décadas de aversão e esquecimento, historiadores de todos os quadrantes começam a regressar aos estudos de grande escala temporal. Há até sinais de que os historiadores intelectuais estão a retomar a abordagem de longa duração. Quais serão as razões para este ressurgimento da história intelectual de grande alcance e de que modo pode ela tornar-se metodologicamente robusta e, ao mesmo tempo, historicamente convincente? Este artigo propõe um modelo de história transtemporal baseado num contextualismo seriado para criar uma «história nas ideias» («history in ideas») que englobe séculos ou até milénios. Alguns exemplos-chave são retirados de trabalhos em desenvolvimento focados em ideias sobre a guerra civil vista desde a Roma antiga até à atualidade. O artigo conclui com uma breve reflexão sobre o impacto potencial das humanidades digitais na prática da história intelectual.
The authors of The History Manifesto respond to the Viewpoint commentary and extend the dialogue ... more The authors of The History Manifesto respond to the Viewpoint commentary and extend the dialogue between the book's arguments and the recent historiography of science, technology, and medicine. istorians of science, no less than other historians, are prone to periodic bouts of concern about the coherence and public profile of their field. On Isis's seventy-fifth birthday in 1987, Charles Rosenberg lamented that "many practitioners experience a sense of fragmentation, feel that their discipline no longer shares a common identity." "Like every other field of scholarship," he continued, "we train our students to be increasingly careful and narrow," and yet "we often have to respond to ethical and policy demands." Isis by itself could not recover some lost paradise of unity and common purpose, he argued, but it could still foster "a broader and more unified vision" of science and the role of scientists, across time and space. Similar anxieties and hopes informed a forum on "The Big Picture" ten years later in the British Journal for the History of Science, where James Secord applauded the gains in sophistication and professionalism that specialization had wrought but saw an urgent need to apply the results "to longer time spans, a broader range of participants, and wider regional and global perspectives." "Without engagement in larger issues," he concluded, "our small pictures are inevitably impoverished"; most of the other forum contributors agreed. 1 Isis continued the conversation in 2005 with its forum on "The Generalist Vision," in which
Después de décadas de aversión y abandono, historiadores de todo tipo vuelven a ofrecer estudios ... more Después de décadas de aversión y abandono, historiadores de todo tipo vuelven a ofrecer estudios de gran amplitud temporal. Hay incluso signos de que los historiadores intelectuales están regresando a la longue durée. ¿Cuáles son las razones de este revival de la historia de las ideas desde la larga duración? Este artículo propone un modelo de historia transtemporal, que procede por medio de un contextualismo seriado con el fin de crear una historia en forma de ideas que puede abarcar siglos, incluso milenios: se ofrecen ejemplos clave procedentes de un trabajo en curso sobre las ideas acerca de la guerra civil desde la antigua Roma hasta el presente. El artículo concluye con unas breves reflexiones sobre el potencial impacto de las humanidades digitales en la práctica de la historia intelectual. Palabras clave: Escuela de Cambridge; guerra civil; historia conceptual; humanidades digitales; longue durée.
A century before the guns of August opened fire on Belgrade in 1914, the Congress of Vienna opene... more A century before the guns of August opened fire on Belgrade in 1914, the Congress of Vienna opened proceedings in September 1814. The contrast between the current memories of these two mo ments is striking. The centenary of the outbreak of World War I attracts worldwide interest: witness the numerous popular commemo rations that will take place in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere this year, on top of the estimated 25,000 books written about the conflict since 1918. Meanwhile, the bicentenary of the Congress has hardly caught the eye of a public beyond the academia. What can this comparison tell us about why we write history? And how might we reassert the power of peace amid the prevailing talk of war?
IT IS IN THE NATURE OF MANIFESTOS to be hopeful, forward-looking, and somewhat provocative. As th... more IT IS IN THE NATURE OF MANIFESTOS to be hopeful, forward-looking, and somewhat provocative. As the name suggests, manifestos strive to be open, to make evident what might otherwise be obscure. Ever since Marx and Engels irreversibly reconfigured the genre's authoritative, sovereign form in the mid-nineteenth century, manifestos have been both rhetorical and practical, diagnostic as well as reformative: they discern problems and offer sometimes utopian solutions. They generally try to rise above perceived divisions to mobilize a community or conjure one where it had not existed before. Because they are not meant to sustain the status quo but rather to imagine new possibilities, they are generally exhortatory in tone. 1 Often short, punchy, and direct, such manifestations can be unsettling. Any manifesto worth its salt will likely invigorate many readers only at the cost of disturbing others. That has not deterred revolutionaries or artists from writing manifestos; when the time is ripe, even historians have been known to produce them. 2 The History Manifesto deliberately adopts many of the features of the genre. The book is literally open, in the sense that it is available through open access for free download-a first for its publisher, Cambridge University Press-with the aim of reaching the widest possible readership, both academic and non-academic. 3 It diagnoses a crisis of the humanities in general, and for history in particular. It then proposes one set of solutions that draws upon new possibilities for researching, writing, and disseminating history, not least by using digital methods and data. The book concentrates on what joins all historians together-what our shared and distinctive practices are and how they might be extended-rather than on the distinctions be-Many thanks to
Foundations of Modern International Thought (FMIT) brings together a series of David Armitage's p... more Foundations of Modern International Thought (FMIT) brings together a series of David Armitage's previously published essays. In the Introduction to the text, Armitage quotes Hugh Trevor-Roper's 'classical apologia' for sets of collected essays, that they 'receive an underlying unity from the philosophy of the writer' (p. 2). More broadly, he justifies his particular collection as a contribution to the developing field of international intellectual history. In this respect, he claims, they form the third part of a trilogy with his previous works The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (2000) and The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007). However, unlike the previously published texts, FMIT is not a systematic engagement with specific concepts within the history of international thought. It is an eclectic collection of essays, which engages with several different concepts, including the concepts of 'global', 'transnational' and 'international' themselves, as well as with the work of specific thinkers, with essays dedicated to the work of Hobbes, Locke, Burke and Bentham. The book is organised into four parts. Part 1 involves broadranging methodological and substantive reflections on international intellectual history. Part 2 interrogates the work of Hobbes and Locke as foundational thinkers for modern international thought. Part 3 focuses on the contributions of eighteenth
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Jeremy Bentham's career as a writer spanned almost seventy years, from the Seven Years' War to th... more Jeremy Bentham's career as a writer spanned almost seventy years, from the Seven Years' War to the early 1830s, a period contemporaries called an age of revolutions and more recent historians have seen as a world crisis. This article traces Bentham's developing universalism in the context of international conflict across his lifetime and in relation to his attempts to create a 'Universal Jurisprudence'. That ambition went unachieved and his successors turned his conception of international law in more particularist direction. Going back behind Bentham's legacies to his own writings, both published and unpublished, reveals a thinker responsive to specific events but also committed to a universalist vision that helped to make him a precociously global figure in the history of political thought. Historians of political thought have lately made two great leaps forward in expanding the scope of their inquiries. The first, the 'international turn', was long
Lincoln effectively guided the Union through the Civil War by inspiring Northerners with his conv... more Lincoln effectively guided the Union through the Civil War by inspiring Northerners with his conviction that the struggle would be won. The war tested the American ideal of democracy and was a defense of political liberalism at a time when much of Europe had rejected it. It was also the first tentative step toward racial equality. The Storm Gathers After Lincoln's election in 1860, seven southern states seceded. Although in hindsight, the war seems inevitable, to most Americans at the time it was not. Armed conflict did not erupt until after a compromise effort had failed, shots were fired at Fort Sumter, and the North resolved to fight to preserve the Union. The Deep South Secedes With the election of Lincoln, the seven states of the Deep South seceded from the Union to better secure slavery. The process was not without debate, however. Southerners were divided over the process of secession as well as the need for it. South Carolina's unilateral move forced the issue, however, and during February 1861, the seceded states met and formed the provisional government of the Confederate States of America that looked remarkably like the Union before the rise of the Republicans and the abolitionists. The Failure of Compromise When northern and border state moderates attempted a reconciliation of the sections, Lincoln led the Republicans in rejecting the proposed compromise because it would have permitted the spread of slavery to the Southwest. Lincoln also believed that compromise would have negated the platform that he had run and that a majority of Americans had voted for in the election of 1860. Even if the compromise had passed, there is no evidence that the secessionists would have been satisfied with it. And the War Came When crisis arose at Fort Sumter, Lincoln carefully avoided firing the first shot by shifting the burden of war to the South Carolinians and Jefferson Davis. On 13 April 1861, after forty hours of canon bombardment, the fort surrendered, marking the beginning of the Civil War. The firing on Fort Sumter served to rally the North behind Lincoln and his call for troops. The call for troops prompted a second wave of secession conventions in the border South states with varying results.
Resumen: Este artículo indaga sobre cómo llegó a aceptarse a Hobbes como una figura fundacional e... more Resumen: Este artículo indaga sobre cómo llegó a aceptarse a Hobbes como una figura fundacional en la historia del pensamiento internacional a causa de su afirmación de que el ámbito de las relaciones internacionales se asemeja a un estado de naturaleza habitado por agentes competitivos y atemorizados. El autor sostiene que las reflexiones de Hobbes sobre la dimensión externa del Estado son más amplias de lo que suele señalarse y realiza un estudio de la pervivencia de su pensamiento a partir del siglo XVII, demostrando que no fue hasta el siglo XX cuando adquirió tal preeminencia, como consecuencia del consenso alcanzado respecto al hecho de que el ámbito de las relaciones internacionales era ciertamente anárquico. Sin embargo, Hobbes no inspiró directamente esta concepción de las relaciones internacionales, sino que fueron sus partidarios quienes recurrieron a él para apoyar sus teorías, pues Hobbes opinaba que el estado de naturaleza interestatal no podía ser equiparado al interpersonal, dado que si bien los Estados podían ser tan temerosos y competitivos como los individuos en sus relaciones mutuas, no obstante, no eran tan vulnerables ni esta situación de anarquía impedía la cooperación internacional.
By the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the anglophone inhabitants of the Atlantic world... more By the second quarter of the eighteenth century, the anglophone inhabitants of the Atlantic world began for the first time habitually to describe their community as collectively British and structurally an empire. This 'British empire' included the United Kingdom of Great Britain (created by the Union of England and Scotland in 1707) and its dependencies within Europe, Britain's insular possessions in the West Indies, and the continental colonies of British North America. Sometimes, though not always, it also encompassed the slave stations, factories and forts of Africa and the East Indies. 1 This conception of a British empire demanded the union of a substantive idea of Britishness with a redefinition of inherited ideas of empire. The acquisition of such a conceptual vocabulary is a reliable indicator of a change in the selfconsciousness of a community. 2 'The concepts we have settle for us the form of the experience we have of the world ... That is not to say that our concepts may not change; but when they do, that means that our concept of the world has changed too'. 3 This is especially true when those concepts define the nature and limits of the community itself. In this case, British imperial ideology had to be sufficiently broad to encompass the pluralism of a multinational and multidenominational polity, while necessarily narrow enough to exclude those deemed unworthy of its political
During the late nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth, there was a burst of... more During the late nineteenth century and the opening decades of the twentieth, there was a burst of interest in unifying the scattered members of the 'Anglo-Saxon race' or 'English-speaking peoples'. Though emanating principally from Britain, promotion of the Angloworld was at once transatlantic and transcolonial, drawing contributors from all the territories its proponents sought to unite. It assumed two principal forms. One focused on the consolidation of Britain and its remaining settler colonies in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and (more ambivalently) southern Africa. This was the discourse of 'imperial federation'. The other main
The "rst editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), James Murray, delighted to tell the ... more The "rst editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), James Murray, delighted to tell the story of a dream in which he had overheard his great lexicographical predecessor, Samuel Johnson, in conversation with James Boswell, his biographer: J its proponents argue that the OED's coverage is so complete, and that its lexicographical principles are so congenial to historians, that it will do duty as an English GG for all foreseeable purposes. Murray would no doubt have been pleased by these plaudits, as he would surely have been intrigued by the GG. Like the OED, the GG has been a collective and collaborative enterprise, superintended by scholars with a commanding historical research programme; each was based on &historical principles', and each relied heavily on the use of quotations as the basis for its entries. However, both were products of their times and places, and of the particular research agendas on which they were
Originality and novelty define the modern script of revolution. That script was original in the s... more Originality and novelty define the modern script of revolution. That script was original in the sense that it had identifiable beginnings that have been precisely located in France in 1789. And it was novel because in that year " the French imagined a radical break with the past achieved by the conscious will of human actors, an inaugural moment for a drama of change and transformation projected indefinitely into the future. " After 1789, revolution in the singular replaced revolutions in the plural. What had been understood before 1789 as unavoidable features of nature, as predetermined astronomical cycles, or as eternal recurrences in human affairs became instead voluntary, transformative, and repeatable: revolution as fact gave way to revolution as act. With that daring feat of collective imagination, revolution became ineluctably political, covering primarily but not exclusively fundamental changes concerned with the distribution of power and sovereignty. In the years ...
Three intellectual historians review the debate on the (presumed) rebirth of intellectual history... more Three intellectual historians review the debate on the (presumed) rebirth of intellectual history that has opened up forty years ago. They point out how the discipline has been renewed thanks to a number of seminal books and articles, while preserving its trans-disciplinary methodological bases. And they discuss three main points: first, whether it is possible to talk about a real «rebirth» of the discipline, and why; second, whether the correlation between intellectual history and the history of ideas can be considered outdated, and what are its methodological implications; third, if the spatial turn has had an impact on intellectual history.
Big is back across a wide range of historical fields. Many historians are stretching space, to cr... more Big is back across a wide range of historical fields. Many historians are stretching space, to create international, transnational and global histories. Others are expanding time, to pursue Big History, Deep History and the history of the Anthropocene. What explains this broadening of horizons? And what does it mean for the future of history? This article makes a case for history as a discipline of social and political transformation amid crises of global governance, rising inequality, and anthropogenic climate change. I have been thinking a lot lately about the future of History. I am in the midst of a three-year term (2012-14, 2015-16) as Chair of the Harvard History Department and this has presented a great opportunity to think broadly, not just about the directions my own Department should be going in the next few years, but also about trends in the field, about the meaning of history-as a discipline rather than as a metaphysical force-and about the fate of the humanities more generally. 2 Unlike the benighted and bumbling head of department in Kingsley Amis's novel Lucky Jim (1953), who portentously answers his office phone, 'History speaking', I cannot claim to speak with the voice of history. However, I do want to reflect here on some of the purposes of History as an academic discipline. 3 1 Forthcoming in History Australia. This article is the revised text of a lecture given in various forms at the
Civil war seems to be at once everywhere and nowhere. By the late twentieth century, as interstat... more Civil war seems to be at once everywhere and nowhere. By the late twentieth century, as interstate warfare had almost vanished, civil war had become humanity's most destructive and most characteristic form of organised large-scale violence: in 2018, only two of the world's fifty-two active conflicts were between, rather than within, states. 1 However, there is a striking absence of sustained theoretical reflection on the topic and a more general failure to confront it as an enduring and ever-changing historical phenomenon. Even though concerns about civil war and its cognates can be found across the western canon of political and social thought from Aristotle (and before) to Agamben (and beyond), the subject lacks a work of synthesis for commentary to circle around in the manner of, say, Arendt's On Revolution. To fill this gap, Civil Wars: A History in Ideas (2017) offered what I called an 'unblinking encounter' with its terrifying topic, to account for its ubiquity and unmask its obliquity. None of my books has ever proved to be so timely, nor have I wanted one to be less topical. Civil Wars clearly struck a nerve; or perhaps it simply found its moment. I was both honoured and flattered that, in the months after publication, it rapidly inspired three academic roundtables, in London, Sydney and Cambridge, at which distinguished colleagues in a variety of fields, from classics and literature to international law and political theory, responded to its arguments and sought to extend them. 2 This symposium collects many of those reactions and adds some freshly commissioned ones: it thereby complements another equally wide-ranging published forum on the book. 3 Before engaging with the rich reflections in this critical symposium, I must warmly thank the organisers of the original events, Maksimilian Del Mar (
I am deeply grateful to the American Society of International Law—especially to its president, Lu... more I am deeply grateful to the American Society of International Law—especially to its president, Lucinda Low—and to the International Legal Studies Program at American University Washington College of Law—in particular, to the Dean of the College, Camille Nelson, and to its program director, David Hunter—for their generous invitation to deliver the nineteenth Annual Grotius Lecture. Grateful, but more than a little intimidated. Nobel laureates and heads of state, eminent judges and leading diplomats have given this distinguished lecture, but never, I think, a humble historian. As Isaac Newton might have said were he in my shoes, “[i]f I can see far, it is because I stand on the shoulders of these giants.”
Após décadas de aversão e esquecimento, historiadores de todos os quadrantes começam a regressar ... more Após décadas de aversão e esquecimento, historiadores de todos os quadrantes começam a regressar aos estudos de grande escala temporal. Há até sinais de que os historiadores intelectuais estão a retomar a abordagem de longa duração. Quais serão as razões para este ressurgimento da história intelectual de grande alcance e de que modo pode ela tornar-se metodologicamente robusta e, ao mesmo tempo, historicamente convincente? Este artigo propõe um modelo de história transtemporal baseado num contextualismo seriado para criar uma «história nas ideias» («history in ideas») que englobe séculos ou até milénios. Alguns exemplos-chave são retirados de trabalhos em desenvolvimento focados em ideias sobre a guerra civil vista desde a Roma antiga até à atualidade. O artigo conclui com uma breve reflexão sobre o impacto potencial das humanidades digitais na prática da história intelectual.
The authors of The History Manifesto respond to the Viewpoint commentary and extend the dialogue ... more The authors of The History Manifesto respond to the Viewpoint commentary and extend the dialogue between the book's arguments and the recent historiography of science, technology, and medicine. istorians of science, no less than other historians, are prone to periodic bouts of concern about the coherence and public profile of their field. On Isis's seventy-fifth birthday in 1987, Charles Rosenberg lamented that "many practitioners experience a sense of fragmentation, feel that their discipline no longer shares a common identity." "Like every other field of scholarship," he continued, "we train our students to be increasingly careful and narrow," and yet "we often have to respond to ethical and policy demands." Isis by itself could not recover some lost paradise of unity and common purpose, he argued, but it could still foster "a broader and more unified vision" of science and the role of scientists, across time and space. Similar anxieties and hopes informed a forum on "The Big Picture" ten years later in the British Journal for the History of Science, where James Secord applauded the gains in sophistication and professionalism that specialization had wrought but saw an urgent need to apply the results "to longer time spans, a broader range of participants, and wider regional and global perspectives." "Without engagement in larger issues," he concluded, "our small pictures are inevitably impoverished"; most of the other forum contributors agreed. 1 Isis continued the conversation in 2005 with its forum on "The Generalist Vision," in which
Después de décadas de aversión y abandono, historiadores de todo tipo vuelven a ofrecer estudios ... more Después de décadas de aversión y abandono, historiadores de todo tipo vuelven a ofrecer estudios de gran amplitud temporal. Hay incluso signos de que los historiadores intelectuales están regresando a la longue durée. ¿Cuáles son las razones de este revival de la historia de las ideas desde la larga duración? Este artículo propone un modelo de historia transtemporal, que procede por medio de un contextualismo seriado con el fin de crear una historia en forma de ideas que puede abarcar siglos, incluso milenios: se ofrecen ejemplos clave procedentes de un trabajo en curso sobre las ideas acerca de la guerra civil desde la antigua Roma hasta el presente. El artículo concluye con unas breves reflexiones sobre el potencial impacto de las humanidades digitales en la práctica de la historia intelectual. Palabras clave: Escuela de Cambridge; guerra civil; historia conceptual; humanidades digitales; longue durée.
A century before the guns of August opened fire on Belgrade in 1914, the Congress of Vienna opene... more A century before the guns of August opened fire on Belgrade in 1914, the Congress of Vienna opened proceedings in September 1814. The contrast between the current memories of these two mo ments is striking. The centenary of the outbreak of World War I attracts worldwide interest: witness the numerous popular commemo rations that will take place in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere this year, on top of the estimated 25,000 books written about the conflict since 1918. Meanwhile, the bicentenary of the Congress has hardly caught the eye of a public beyond the academia. What can this comparison tell us about why we write history? And how might we reassert the power of peace amid the prevailing talk of war?
IT IS IN THE NATURE OF MANIFESTOS to be hopeful, forward-looking, and somewhat provocative. As th... more IT IS IN THE NATURE OF MANIFESTOS to be hopeful, forward-looking, and somewhat provocative. As the name suggests, manifestos strive to be open, to make evident what might otherwise be obscure. Ever since Marx and Engels irreversibly reconfigured the genre's authoritative, sovereign form in the mid-nineteenth century, manifestos have been both rhetorical and practical, diagnostic as well as reformative: they discern problems and offer sometimes utopian solutions. They generally try to rise above perceived divisions to mobilize a community or conjure one where it had not existed before. Because they are not meant to sustain the status quo but rather to imagine new possibilities, they are generally exhortatory in tone. 1 Often short, punchy, and direct, such manifestations can be unsettling. Any manifesto worth its salt will likely invigorate many readers only at the cost of disturbing others. That has not deterred revolutionaries or artists from writing manifestos; when the time is ripe, even historians have been known to produce them. 2 The History Manifesto deliberately adopts many of the features of the genre. The book is literally open, in the sense that it is available through open access for free download-a first for its publisher, Cambridge University Press-with the aim of reaching the widest possible readership, both academic and non-academic. 3 It diagnoses a crisis of the humanities in general, and for history in particular. It then proposes one set of solutions that draws upon new possibilities for researching, writing, and disseminating history, not least by using digital methods and data. The book concentrates on what joins all historians together-what our shared and distinctive practices are and how they might be extended-rather than on the distinctions be-Many thanks to
Foundations of Modern International Thought (FMIT) brings together a series of David Armitage's p... more Foundations of Modern International Thought (FMIT) brings together a series of David Armitage's previously published essays. In the Introduction to the text, Armitage quotes Hugh Trevor-Roper's 'classical apologia' for sets of collected essays, that they 'receive an underlying unity from the philosophy of the writer' (p. 2). More broadly, he justifies his particular collection as a contribution to the developing field of international intellectual history. In this respect, he claims, they form the third part of a trilogy with his previous works The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (2000) and The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007). However, unlike the previously published texts, FMIT is not a systematic engagement with specific concepts within the history of international thought. It is an eclectic collection of essays, which engages with several different concepts, including the concepts of 'global', 'transnational' and 'international' themselves, as well as with the work of specific thinkers, with essays dedicated to the work of Hobbes, Locke, Burke and Bentham. The book is organised into four parts. Part 1 involves broadranging methodological and substantive reflections on international intellectual history. Part 2 interrogates the work of Hobbes and Locke as foundational thinkers for modern international thought. Part 3 focuses on the contributions of eighteenth
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Jeremy Bentham's career as a writer spanned almost seventy years, from the Seven Years' War to th... more Jeremy Bentham's career as a writer spanned almost seventy years, from the Seven Years' War to the early 1830s, a period contemporaries called an age of revolutions and more recent historians have seen as a world crisis. This article traces Bentham's developing universalism in the context of international conflict across his lifetime and in relation to his attempts to create a 'Universal Jurisprudence'. That ambition went unachieved and his successors turned his conception of international law in more particularist direction. Going back behind Bentham's legacies to his own writings, both published and unpublished, reveals a thinker responsive to specific events but also committed to a universalist vision that helped to make him a precociously global figure in the history of political thought. Historians of political thought have lately made two great leaps forward in expanding the scope of their inquiries. The first, the 'international turn', was long
Lincoln effectively guided the Union through the Civil War by inspiring Northerners with his conv... more Lincoln effectively guided the Union through the Civil War by inspiring Northerners with his conviction that the struggle would be won. The war tested the American ideal of democracy and was a defense of political liberalism at a time when much of Europe had rejected it. It was also the first tentative step toward racial equality. The Storm Gathers After Lincoln's election in 1860, seven southern states seceded. Although in hindsight, the war seems inevitable, to most Americans at the time it was not. Armed conflict did not erupt until after a compromise effort had failed, shots were fired at Fort Sumter, and the North resolved to fight to preserve the Union. The Deep South Secedes With the election of Lincoln, the seven states of the Deep South seceded from the Union to better secure slavery. The process was not without debate, however. Southerners were divided over the process of secession as well as the need for it. South Carolina's unilateral move forced the issue, however, and during February 1861, the seceded states met and formed the provisional government of the Confederate States of America that looked remarkably like the Union before the rise of the Republicans and the abolitionists. The Failure of Compromise When northern and border state moderates attempted a reconciliation of the sections, Lincoln led the Republicans in rejecting the proposed compromise because it would have permitted the spread of slavery to the Southwest. Lincoln also believed that compromise would have negated the platform that he had run and that a majority of Americans had voted for in the election of 1860. Even if the compromise had passed, there is no evidence that the secessionists would have been satisfied with it. And the War Came When crisis arose at Fort Sumter, Lincoln carefully avoided firing the first shot by shifting the burden of war to the South Carolinians and Jefferson Davis. On 13 April 1861, after forty hours of canon bombardment, the fort surrendered, marking the beginning of the Civil War. The firing on Fort Sumter served to rally the North behind Lincoln and his call for troops. The call for troops prompted a second wave of secession conventions in the border South states with varying results.
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Papers by David Armitage