4 December 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, CLM.5.02, Clement House, LSE
Speaker: Professor Kiran Klaus Patel (GHIL Visiting Professor, 2014-15)
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?
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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.
29 October 2014, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE
Speaker: Professor David Reynolds
Chair: Professor Sönke Neitzel
Professor David Reynolds addressed the legacy of the First World War, in particular the effect of mass bereavement and commemoration.
28 October 2014, Tuesday, 19:00-20:30, New Theatre, East Building, LSE
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.
27 October 2014, Monday, 18:30-20:00, New Theatre, East Building, LSE
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.
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23 October 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE
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.
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16 October 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE
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.
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15 October 2014, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Thai Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE
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.
9 October 2014, Thursday, 18:30-20:00, Wolfson Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE
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.
8 October 2014, Wednesday, 18:30-20:00, Alumni Theatre, New Academic Building, LSE
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.
3 October 2014, Friday, Shaw Library, LSE
Speakers: Among others, Professor David Stevenson
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
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10 September 2014, Wednesday, International Symposium, AHILA, Berlin
The Department 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.
4-6 September 2014, Thursday-Saturday, Shaw Library and Clement House, LSE
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
12 May 2014, Monday, 6.30-8pm, Room 9.04, Tower 2, Clement's Inn, LSE
Department of International History and LSE Middle East Centre: 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.
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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.
30 April 2014, Wednesday, 6.30-8.00pm, Wolfson Theatre, LSE
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.
29 April 2014, Tuesday, 6.30-8.00pm, Hong Kong Theatre, LSE
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.
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5 March 2014, Wednesday, 6.30-8.00pm, Wolfson Theatre, LSE
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.