2014 Events

4 December 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, CLM.5.02, Clement House, LSE

Gerda Henkel Visiting Professorship Lecture: Welfare in the Warfare State: Nazi Social Policy on the International Stage

Speaker: Professor Kiran Klaus Patel

This lecture will investigate the international debates triggered by the social welfare measures the Third Reich introduced in the 1930s and 1940s. Job creation schemes, marriage loans, eugenic measures, and much more were part of Nazi propaganda abroad. What were the regime’s aims? And how did other societies respond?

Kiran Klaus Patel is Professor of European and Global History at Maastricht University and this year’s Gerda Henkel Visiting Professor at the Department of International History at the LSE. He has held many visiting professorships, among others at Harvard University and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, and is also a member of an international team of historians researching the history of the German Ministry of Labour during the Third Reich. Currently, he is concluding a monograph on the global history of the New Deal for Princeton University Press.

*Podcast*

Michaelmas Term 2014, Monday, 18:00, Room 433, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies

Modern Russian History Seminar Series

Convenors: Dr Andy Willimott (UCL SSEES) and Dr Alesandro Iandolo (LSE)

20 October: Steve Smith (Oxford) — Miraculous Icons and Bolshevik Power

6 October: George Gilbert (Oxford) — Conservatives or Radicals? Right-wing factions in the final years of the Russian Empire

10 November: Polly Jones (Oxford) — Reinventing Revolutionary Lives: Writing and Reading Biographies in Late Socialism

24 November: Kristin Roth-Ely (SSEES) — Listening out: Cold War Radio and the Soviet Audience

1 December: Philippa Hetherington (Sydney) — Labour Migrant, Trafficking Victim, Refugee: The Emigrant Subject in Late Imperial Russia and the Early Soviet Union

This was an advanced Seminar Series supported by the UCL SSEES Centre for Russian Studies, and the British Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Dr Alessandro Iandolo is British Academy Fellow at the Department of International History, LSE; Dr Andy Willimott is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at UCL SSEES.

27 November 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Tower 2, Room 9.05, LSE

American Grand Strategy in the Mediterranean during World War II

Speaker: Dr Andrew N. Buchanan
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones

In this presentation, Andrew Buchanan offered a thorough reinterpretation of US engagement with the Mediterranean during World War II. He argued that, far from being a reluctant participant in a 'peripheral' theatre, the United States pursued a sustained grand-strategic interest in the region. By the end of the war the Mediterranean was an American lake, and the United States had substantial political and economic interests extending from North Africa, via Italy and the Balkans, to the Middle East. This presentation examined the military, diplomatic, and economic processes by which this hegemonic position was assembled, looking in particular at the changing character of the Anglo-American alliance, the establishment of post-war spheres of influence, the nature of presidential leadership, and the common interest of all the leaders of the 'Grand Alliance' in blocking the development of revolutionary movements emerging from the chaos of war, occupation, and economic breakdown.

Dr Andrew N. Buchanan is Senior Lecturer in Global, U.S., and Military History at the University of Vermont. Professor Matthew Jones is a Professor at the International History Department at the LSE.

19 November 2014, Wednesday, 18h, Spanish Embassy, Luis Vives Room, 39 Chesham Place, London SW1X 8SB

The Neutrality of Spain during the First World War

Speakers: Professor David Stevenson (LSE) and Dr Francisco Romero Salvadó (Univ. Bristol)
Chair: Professor Paul Preston (LSE)

To commemorate the First Century of the beginning of the Great War (1914-1918), the Office for Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain in the United Kingdom decided to present this seminar.

David Stevenson is Professor of International History at LSE and adviser to 'Europeana 1914-1918 Learning Website'. His publications include With Our Backs to the Wall: Victory and Defeat in 1918 (2011); 1914-1918: the History of the First World War (2004) and Armaments and the Coming of War: Europe, 1904-1914 (1996). Dr Francisco J. Romero Salvadó is Reader in Modern Spanish History at the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies in the University of Bristol. His recent major publications include The Spanish Civil War: Origins, Course and Outcomes (2005), Foundations of the Civil War. Revolution, Social Conflict and Reaction in Spain, 1916–1923 (2008) and La Larga Guerra Civil Española del Siglo XX (2011). Professor Paul Preston is an English historian and hispanist, specialist in Spanish history (in particular the Spanish Civil War, which he has studied for more than 30 years). Since 1991 he has taught at the LSE, where he is Príncipe de Asturias Professor of Contemporary Spanish Studies, and is also director of the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies. His latest book is El zorro rojo - La vida de Santiago Carrillo (2013).

12 November 2014, Wednesday, 18:00-20:00, CLM 5.02, Clement Hours, LSE

International History and International Relations and the Origins of the Great War

Speakers: Professor David Stevenson, Professor Michael Cox
Chair: Dr Svetozar Rajak

The session compared approaches from International Relations and International History to the debate on the origins of the First World War, taking into account the new work that has appeared in connection with the centenary. Professor Michael Cox spoke on the theoretical approaches and Professor David Stevenson spoke on the evolution of the historiography.

David Stevenson is Professor of International History at LSE. Michael Cox is Founding Co-Director of LSE IDEAS and Emeritus Professor in International Relations. Svetozar Rajak is Associate Professor in International History at LSE and Academic Director of LSE IDEAS. 

11 November 2014, Tuesday, 18:30- 20:00, Wolfson Theatre, NAB, LSE

Stalin's Team

Speaker: Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick
Chair: Professor Vladislav Zubok

We know a lot about Stalin but less about the team – Molotov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan and the rest of a group whose membership was roughly but never quite equivalent to the Politburo – that surrounded him for 25 years. They went with him through collectivization, the Great Purges, the Second World War, and the travails of the postwar period, coming through the purges relatively intact but, in the case of Molotov and Mikoyan, barely surviving Stalin’s attempt to oust them in his last years. There can be no doubt that Stalin was the team’s boss, but what was the function of the rest of the team? Were they just yes men? If so, how do we explain their success, as the new “collective leadership,” in achieving a practically blood-free political transition, complete with a consensus reform programme, when he died?

Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick is Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the University of Chicago and Professor of History at the University of Sydney, where she now lives. Professor Vladislav Zubok is Professor of International History at LSE.

*Podcast* 

7 November 2014, Friday, Lancaster House, London

Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historical Branch & International History Department, LSE: 'Sir Edward Grey and the Outbreak of the First World War'

Speakers: Roy Bridge, Christopher Clark, Keith Hamilton, John Keiger, Annika Mombauer, Thomas Otte, Keith Robbins, Richard Smith, Zara Steiner and Keith Wilson.

Key LSE organisers: Professor David Stevenson and Dr Heather Jones
Key FCO organisers: The FCO Historians Professor Patrick Salmon and Dr Richard Smith

This one-day conference focused on reappraising Britain’s decision to enter the First World War and on the role played by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey. It examined not only the July-August 1914 crisis but also the pre-war decade of relations between Britain and the Central Powers and between Britain and the Entente. It considered how other Powers viewed British policy as well as how Britain viewed them. And although its focus was on Grey’s personality and leadership, the Foreign Office and the diplomatic corps, attention was given as necessary to other parts of Whitehall, to Westminster politics, and to British public opinion more broadly.

See Conference Programme. 

5 November 2014, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Tower 2, room 9.04, LSE

God Save the Community: Greece's Entry into the EEC

Speaker: Dr Eirini Karamouzi
Discussant: Dr Piers Ludlow
Chair: Professor Michael Cox

The financial and economic crises that gripped Greece in 2010 set in motion a domino effect that upset the stability of the Euro. It opened the floodgates to a seemingly endless stream of accusations and recriminations over the economic, financial and political origins of the Greek crisis, with European political elites and the press alike questioning even Greece’s entry to the EEC. This heightened interest from the public calls for a deeper understanding of Greece’s relations with Europe, starting with a historical analysis of Greece’s road to EEC membership. Why did the Europeans say ‘YES’ to Greece? What was the rationale? These questions are explored in Dr Eirini Karamouzi's new book, Greece, the EEC and the Cold War, 1974-1979: the Second Enlargement, which was launched at the event.

Dr Eirini Karamouzi is Lecturer in Contemporary History, University of Sheffield, A.G. Leventis Fellow (Oxford University) and Executive Director for the LSE Commission on Diplomacy at LSE IDEAS. She taught at the Department of International History, LSE, for several years and after finishing her PhD there she went on to be the Pinto Post-doctoral Fellow for 2011-2012. Dr Piers Ludlow is Head of the Cold War Studies Programme at LSE IDEAS and Associate Professor at the Department of International History, LSE. Professor Michael Cox is Founding Co-Director of LSE IDEAS and Emeritus Professor in International Relations. 

29 October 2014, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and LSE Remembrance Lecture

Speaker: Professor David Reynolds
Chair: Professor Sönke Neitzel

Professor David Reynolds will address the legacy of the First World War, in particular the effect of mass bereavement and commemoration.

David Reynolds is Professor of International History at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Christ’s College.Sönke Neitzel is a professor in the Department of International History at LSE and a leading expert on the history of Germany in the two world wars. 

28 October 2014, Tuesday, 19:00-20:30, New Theatre, East Building, LSE

Department of International History Annual Lecture: "The Vietnam Wars Reconsidered"

Speaker: Professor Fredrik Logevall

With the outpouring of scholarship on the Vietnam Wars in recent years, it's time to take stock and reconsider two core questions: why did the wars happen, and why did two Western powers, first France and then the United States, fail in their efforts? In this lecture historian Fredrik Logevall offered his analysis, while also contemplating the meaning of the war for our own time.

Fredrik Logevall is the Stephen and Madeline Anbinder Professor of History at Cornell University. His most recent book is Embers of War: The Fall of An Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam, which received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for History. 

27 October 2014, Monday, 18:30-20:00, New Theatre, East Building, LSE

25 Years After the End of the Cold War: Its Legacy in a New World Order

Speakers: Professor Beatrice Heuser, Dr Andrew Monaghan, Professor Vladislav Zubok
Chair: Professor Michael Cox

Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, how do these events shape the world today? What are the legacies of the Cold War? And are we truly in the midst of a new Cold War? This event marked the launch of the special issue of Cold War History, entitled 'The Cold War in Retrospect - 25 years after its end', edited by Professor Beatrice Heuser.

Professor Beatrice Heuser is Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading; Dr Andrew Monaghan in Senior Research Fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House; Professor Vladislav Zubok is Professor of International History, LSE and Head of the Russia International Affairs Programme, LSE IDEAS; Professor Michael Cox is Founding Co-Director of LSE IDEAS and Emeritus Professor in International Relations.

*Podcast*

23 October 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

LSE Annual Gulf History Lecture: “A Matter of Life and Death for the Country”: The Iranian Intervention in Oman, 1972-1975

Speaker: Professor James Goode

This became one of the Shah’s most successful foreign initiatives. He entered at the request of Sultan Qabus to help quell a Marxist rebellion in Dhufar province. Acting for reasons wholly related to Iran’s regional security, he angered most of his Arab neighbours. His troops tipped the balance, helping to speed the end of the insurrection, for which Iran earned the lasting gratitude of the sultan.

The annual LSE Gulf History Lecture was hosted by the LSE Department of International History, with the generous support of the LSE Kuwait Programme.

Professor Goode teaches history at Grand Valley State University. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran, 1968-1971, and later taught for the University of Mashhad, 1971-1973. He has written widely on modern Iran, including Negotiating for the Past (2007), winner of the Robert H. Ferrell prize.

*Podcast*

16 October 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Book Launch: Nixon, Kissinger and the Shah: The United States and Iran in the Cold War by Dr Roham Alvandi

Speaker: Dr Roham Alvandi
Chair: Professor Toby Dodge

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, is often remembered as a pliant instrument of American power during the Cold War. In this lecture and book launch, Roham Alvandi offered a revisionist account of the Shah's relationship with the United States by examining the partnership he forged with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Dr Alvandi discussed how the Shah shaped US policy in the Persian Gulf under Nixon and Kissinger, including the CIA’s covert support for the Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq, and the US role in the origins of Iran’s nuclear program. Dr Alvandi drew on the history of Iran’s Cold War partnership with the United States to examine the potential for Iranian-American cooperation in the Middle East today.

Roham Alvandi is Assistant Professor of International History at LSE. He is a historian of modern Iran and the wider Middle East and has written extensively on the history of Iran’s foreign relations. His recent book, Nixon, Kissinger, and the Shah: The United States and Iran in the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2014), was selected by the Financial Times as one of its ‘summer books’ of 2014. Professor Toby Dodge is Director of the Middle East Centre at LSE, Deputy Director of LSE IDEAS, and a Professor in the International Relations Department at the LSE.

*Podcast*

15 October 2014, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Thai Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Public Lecture and Book Launch of Austro-Hungarian War Aims in the Balkans during World War I by Dr Marvin B. Fried

Participants: Dr Marvin B. Fried and introduction by Professor David Stevenson

Beyond their fateful decisions which ultimately led to the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian leaders played a vital role in continuing and expanding the conflict to feed their territorial ambitions. Using previously secret material, Fried examined in his book the Monarchy's aggressive and expansionist war aims in the Balkans. The conquest and subjugation of Serbia was but a cornerstone of a wider Austro-Hungarian imperialist dream of further annexations and the precursor to a hegemonic economic empire in the rest of South-East Europe. Was the purpose to make Austria-Hungary, in the words of one of its leaders, a truly 'European Great Power of the first order,' or were these simply the death throes of an obsolete empire, loathe to voluntarily part with its Great Power status and prestige? In either case, these war aims were 'life and death questions' for the Monarchy's leaders, without which there would be no peace and for which they were prepared to sacrifice enormous quantities of blood and treasure.

Marvin B. Fried is a Guest Teacher at the Department of International History; David Stevenson is Professor of International History at the same department.

13 October 2014, Monday, 17:15-19:15, Brunei Gallery, Room B104, SOAS

Muslim Encounters with Nazism and the Holocaust: The Ahmadi of Berlin and Jewish Convert to Islam Hugo Marcus

Speaker: Professor Marc Baer

This seminar was part of the Near and Middle East History Seminar hosted by the Department of History, SOAS

Marc Baer is Professor of International History at LSE.

9 October 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

Department of International History Public Lecture: "Siberia: a History of the People"

Speaker: Professor Janet Hartley

Siberia is a part of Russia but also a specific region with its own characteristics. Based on rich sources, many from local archives, Janet Hartley looks at the life of the people – who came to Siberia, how they lived, how were governed , how they related to the indigenous population – from the late sixteenth century, when “Sibir” became part of the Russian empire, to the present. This lecture marks the launch of Siberia: a History of the People published by Yale in July 2014.

Professor Janet Hartley is Professor of International History at the LSE and Head od Department. She is the author of six books and many articles and chapters on Russian history and Anglo-Russian relations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

8 October 2014, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Alumni Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

LSE-NUS Public Lecture: Cross-Border Cross Referencing: sorting out Indonesian confrontation in the field

Speaker: Professor Brian P Farrell
Chair: Dr Kirsten Schulze

Indonesia ‘confronted’ the establishment of Malaysia in 1963 by waging an undeclared war, which included armed incursions across recognized international frontiers. The lecture will discuss the work of a military historian in the field and explore the role and perspectives of the local populations during this cross-border conflict.

This event is free and open to all with no ticket or pre-registration required.

Brian Farrell is professor of military history and (currently) head of the Department of History at the National University of Singapore. His main areas of research interest are the military history of the British Empire, especially in the 20th century; the modern history of empires and imperialism, especially in Asia; the history of Western military power in Asia; and problems related to collective security and coalition warfare. He is currently acting as principal investigator on the major research project Empire in Asia: A New Global History, and serving as Asia-Pacific regional coordinator for the Society for Military History, the largest such professional organization in the world.Kirsten Schulze is associate professor in International History, LSE. She has conducted research on armed conflicts in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and has been the head of the LSE Ideas Southeast Asia Program since 2012.

3 October 2014, Friday, Shaw Library, London School of Economics

Trails of the Great War, 1914 to 2014

Speakers: Professor Craig Calhoun,Dr John F Jungclaussen, Professor David Stevenson, Professor Robert Gerwarth, Professor John Horne, Professor Philip Bobbitt, Professor Richard Sennett, Lord Glasman, Jesse Norman MP, Professor Zygmunt Bauman

The centenary year of the outbreak of the Great War began with a serious debate over the war guilt question. Historians such as Christopher Clark, David Reynolds and Niall Ferguson engaged a wide public audience with their respective arguments. After that, the focus was very much on the nature of war itself. In the media, in theatres and concert halls, in stately homes and village halls, the British commemoration of the Great War was strikingly visceral. History, it seemed, was less about rationalising past events than it was about accessing the emotional experience of those who lived in it.

Yet, 1914 marked the beginning of a conflict that was much more than a ‘national catastrophe’ for Britain. In the words of the American diplomat and historian George F Kennan this was ‘the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century’, the big bang that determined the course of history and continues to define the political reality in Britain, Europe and America to this day. The aim of this conference was to move beyond the parochial and broaden the view of the British debate.

See Conference Programme.

Professor Craig Calhoun is Director of the LSE and former Director of the Social Research Council; Dr John F Jungclaussen is UK Correspondent DIE ZEIT newspaper, historian and author; David Stevenson is Professor of International History at the LSE; Robert Gerwarth is Professor of Modern History, Director of the Centre for War Studies, University College Dublin; John Horne is Professor of Modern European History, Trinity College Dublin; Philip Bobbitt is Herbert Wechsler Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia University. Director of Centre for National Security, Columbia University; Richard Sennett is Professor of Sociology at the LSE, Co-Chair of the New Urban Charter Programme for UN Habitat; Lord Glasman is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, Director of the Faith and Citizenship Programme, London Metropolitan University; Jesse Norman is an MP; Zygmunt Bauman is Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds.

*Podcast*

10 September 2014, Wednesday, International Symposium, AHILA, Berlin

Latin America and Europe during the Cold War

The LSE sponsored a symposium at 2014’s AHILA conference in Berlin on 10 September. Coordinated by Dr Tanya Harmer, the symposium brought together 15 historians from around the world in 4 panels to examine the relations between Latin America, the Soviet bloc and Western Europe. The symposium focused on the formal relations between governments and political parties of Latin America and Europe. It aimed to investigate the transnational networks and contacts that emerged between both regions as a result of solidarity movements, youth groups, academic exchanges and travel. Beyond showcasing new research, the aim of the symposium was to lay the foundations of a new international network aimed at understanding, and disseminating sources on the relationship between Europe and Latin America during the Cold War.

Read the Conference Programme

 4-6 September 2014, Thursday-Saturday, Shaw Library and Clement House, LSE

26th Annual Conference of the British International History Group

The 26th Annual Conference of the British International History Group took place at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 4 to 6 September 2014. The conference showcased several speakers from LSE's International History Department, namely Nigel Ashton, Antony Best, Steve Casey, David Stevenson and Arne Westad.

See the Conference Programme

27 May 2014, Tuesday, Council Room, King’s College London

ICBH Annual Conference: Monarchies at War

Speakers: Dr Antony Best, Dr Jonathan Boff, Dr Richard Dunley, Professor Erik Goldstein and Professor William Philpott

As part of King’s College London’s centenary commemoration of the Great War, the Institute of Contemporary British History was proud to be holding its annual conference on 'Monarchies at War'. The conference considered the role of monarchies from around the world in the First World War and in subsequent conflicts. It covered the diplomatic, political, military and social aspects of their roles, and considered perspectives from around the world.

Dr Antony Best is Associate Professor of International History at LSE, Dr Jonathan Boff is Lecturer in History at University of Birmingham, Dr Richard Dunley is a Contemporary Records Specialist at the National Archives, Professor Erik Goldstein is Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University and Professor William Philpott is Professor of the History of Warfare at KCL. 

12 May 2014, Monday, 6.30-8pm, Room 9.04, Tower 2, Clement's Inn, LSE

US-Iran Détente: Past and Present

Speakers: Ambassador John Limbert, Dr Chris Emery, Dr Roham Alvandi
Chair: Professor Toby Dodge

The historic September 2013 phone call between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and U.S. President Barack Obama represented the highest-level contact between Iran and the United States since relations between the two countries were severed in April 1980, in the midst of the Tehran hostage crisis. As Iran and the P5+1 move ahead with drafting a comprehensive nuclear agreement, Tehran and Washington have carefully pursued a détente that could transform the political landscape of the Middle East. This roundtable will examine the troubled history of US-Iran relations, past failed efforts at détente, and the prospects for a breakthrough in US-Iran relations in 2014.

Ambassador John Limbert is Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern (Iranian) Affairs; Dr Chris Emery is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Plymouth University of Plymouth; Dr Roham Alvandi is Assistant Professor of International History at the LSE.

*Podcast*

8 May 2014, Thursday, 1pm, B13 at 32 Lincolns Inn Fields, LSE

Feeling Imperial: The Shaping of American Attitudes towards the Philippines

Speaker: Professor Andrew Rotter
Chair: Professor Matthew Jones

American attitudes towards their empire in the Philippines were deeply shaped by notions of civilisation derived from sensory perceptions of themselves and others. The islands’ rough and tangled terrain, suffocating heat and humidity, and the allegedly dangerous bodily contact Americans had with the Philippine people all conspired to confirm suspicions that the islands were not sufficiently civilised for self-government. Only after the land could be smoothed, the air made less oppressive, and the people less rough-skinned and disease-prone, could the United States consider independence for the archipelago.

Professor Andrew Rotter is Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Colgate University, USA.

6 May 2014, Tuesday, 6.30-8.00pm, Wolfson Theatre, LSE

Department of International History Public Lecture: ‘LSE’s War: 1914-1918’

Speaker: Professor David Stevenson
Chair: Professor Anita Prażmowska

Drawing on new research in the School’s archives, this lecture will retrace the LSE experience before, during, and in the aftermath of the First World War.   David Stevenson is Stevenson Professor of International History at the School, and an expert on the history of the 1914-18 conflict.

David Stevenson is Stevenson Professor of International History at the School, and an expert on the history of the 1914-18 conflict. 

30 April 2014, Wednesday, 6.30-8.00pm, Wolfson Theatre, LSE

Department of International History Roundtable III: ‘Reappraising the First World War: the Legacy’

Speakers: Dr Bill Kissane, Dr Svetozar Rajak, Professor Max Schulze, Professor Alan Sked, Professor Sӧnke Neitzel
Chair: Professor David Stevenson

As part of the events connected with the First World War centenary, the Department of International History organized a series of roundtable discussions on the war. This event assessed the impact and the aftermath of the war on the British Isles and Continental Europe, as well as the links between the First and Second World Wars.

Bill Kissane is Associate Professor (Reader) in Politics at the Department of Government (LSE); Svetozar Rajak is Associate Professor at the Department of International History (LSE); Max Schulze is Professor of Economic History at the Department of Economic History (LSE); Alan Sked is Professor of International History at the Department of International History (LSE); Sӧnke Neitzel is Professor of International History at the Department of International History (LSE).

30 April 2014, Wednesday, 6:30-8:00pm, NAB 1.04, LSE

The Nazi-Soviet Pact in the Light of Transnational History: 'Persian Connections in German-Soviet Relations'
 
Speaker: Professor Jennifer Jenkins
Chair: Dr Roham Alvandi

The Nazi-Soviet Pact, a central topic in the scholarship on the Second World War, is generally studied in its political and European dimensions. It was the instrument for the coming together of two unlikely ideological allies in the destruction and acquisition of Poland. By contrast the economic aspects of the Pact are understudied, although they were fundamental to how it functioned. They also worked through transnational networks that stretched far beyond Europe. Professor Jennifer Jenkins took a new look at the Nazi-Soviet Pact by embedding it in German and Soviet economic policies toward the Near East, specifically with Iran, from the early Weimar period forward. She also explored the history of German-Soviet-Persian economic cooperation in the interwar period, Iran's importance as a zone of cooperation between Germany and the USSR, and its place in the making of the Pact.

Jennifer L. Jenkins is Associate Professor of German and European History at the University of Toronto.

*Podcast*

29 April 2014, Tuesday, 6.30-8.00pm, Hong Kong Theatre, LSE

Department of International History in association with The Churchill Centre (UK) Public Debate: 'Churchill and Leadership: Constructing a Political Icon'
 
Speakers: Professor Richard Toye, Lord Alan Watson and Dr Lucy Noakes
Chair: Dr Antony Best

Winston Churchill remains one of the most prominent British leaders in history. This event explored the political, strategic, and personal dimensions of Churchill's approach to leadership.

Lucy Noakes is a social and cultural historian of mid-century Britain at the University of Brighton and  is the current Honorary Secretary of the Social History Society. Richard Toye is a Professor of History at the University of Exeter and has published several books on Winston Churchill. Lord Alan Watson is a former BBC broadcaster and Chairman of CTN Communications and Chairman of Havas Media UK.  He is also Vice President of the English Speaking Union and a patron of the Churchill Archives at Churchill College, Cambridge.

*Podcast*

13 March 2014, Thursday, 11:00-1:00pm, NAB 2.13, LSE

Lent Term: World History Workshop

Speaker: Dr Kent Deng

The aim of this workshop was to provide a forum for an intellectual exchange of ideas between staff and postgraduate students across the LSE about new research, advances in the field of world history and recent historiographical debates. Topics of particular interest included histories of the extra-European world, empires, post-colonial societies, citizenship, trade networks, modernity and development, cultural exchanges, transnational lives, migration and exile. On 13 March, Dr Kent Deng from the Economic History Department presented a paper to the workshop entitled, "Absorbing pressure and generating growth: Demystifying China's Early Economic Revolution during the Northern Song Era, circa 960-1127." 

Staff, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students from all departments at the LSE were welcome to attend.

 

Please email Dr Tanya Harmer to receive a copy of Dr Deng's paper.

Dr Kent Deng is Associate Professor in Economic History at LSE.

11 March 2014, Tuesday, 6.30-8.00pm, Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE

The Origins of the Final Solution: Eastern Europe and the Holocaust
 
Speaker: Professor Timothy Snyder
Chair: Professor Michael Cox

The Nazi Final Solution was implemented in occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union, in the lands that after the end of the war quickly fell behind the Iron Curtain. The opening of borders and archives has permitted a much fuller acquaintance with the victims of the Holocaust, the vast majority of whom were east European Jews, as well as with the motivation and behaviours of the German perpetrators and the east Europeans who aided them in the murder.  Must the national history of eastern Europe, with which we began, now collapse into nothing more than a prehistory of catastrophe? Or might instead a grounding in national history help us better discern the human causes of the Holocaust?  Only an explanation that can unite Hitler's metaphysical anti-Semitism with the experience of German power in eastern Europe can be satisfactory.

Timothy Snyder is the Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs for the 2013-2014 academic year.

*Podcast*

10 March 2014, Monday, 5:30-7:00pm, Kings College London, Centre for Hellenic Studies, K0.31, Strand Campus

Real and Imagined: Philhellenic Travel in the Greek War of Independence

Speaker: Dr Paul Stock

This paper discussed philhellenic travellers' perceptions and experiences of Greece in the early nineteenth century, especially during the War of Independence in the 1820s. It argued that the philhellenes understood Greece as a ‘real-and-imagined’ space. Greece was an ‘imagined’ location in the sense that philhellenic conception of it is shaped by certain rhetorical assumptions and priorities. But, evidently, it was also a ‘real’ space, not simply in the obvious sense that the landscape has a tangible existence, but also in that those rhetorical constructions have concrete consequences and expressions.  The paper discussed the significance of this real-and-imagined Greece as conceived by a number of prominent British philhellenes.

Dr Paul Stock is Lecturer in Early Modern International History 1500-1850 at LSE.

5 March 2014, Wednesday, 6.30-8.00pm, Wolfson Theatre, LSE

Department of International History Roundtable II: 'Reappraising the First World War: Global War'

Participants: Dr Antony Best, Dr Paul Mulvey, Professor David Stevenson

As part of the events connected with the First World War centenary, the Department of International History has organized a series of roundtable discussions on the war. This was the second roundtable on the subject which assessed the First World War’s importance in global history, and as a turning point in Europe’s relations with the wider world.

Anthony Best is Senior Lecturer in international history at LSE; Paul Mulvey is a Graduate Teaching Assistant in international history at LSE; David Stevenson is Professor of international history at LSE.

26 February 2014, Wednesday, 7:00-8.30pm, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE

LSE Literary Festival Discussion: Why Remember? Reflections on the First World War Centenary

Speakers: Professor Michael Cox, Dr John Hutchinson, Professor Margaret Macmillan
Chair: Professor David Stevenson

This multi-disciplinary panel discussion reflected on the consequences of the First World War and the value of remembrance, including the impact on international relations, the effect on nationalism and the home front, and what photography and narration of the war can tell us about our society.

Michael Cox is founding Co-Director of LSE IDEAS and Professor of international relations at LSE; John Hutchinson is Reader in nationalism in the Department of Government at LSE; Margaret Macmillan is the Warden of St Antony's College, Oxford; David Stevenson is Professor of international history at LSE.

*Podcast*