Latest news about the Department and its members, such as new appointments, publications, book launches, awards, speaking engagements, media coverage and standings in world and national ranks. We are also on social media. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Latest news
Professor Kristina Spohr on Europe-China relations
On 8 September, Professor Spohr took part as a discussant on a three-hour radio show, “Dienstags Direkt” of MDR-Sachsen in Dresden, focusing on the state of Europe’s and Germany’s cultural, economic and political ties with China. Catch up with the discussion here (in German).
LSE History rises up in the rankings
In the Guardian's Best UK Universities 2021 league table, LSE has been ranked the 6th best university overall for the study of History, an improvement of 34 places on the 2020 rankings. The rise in this year’s Guardian rankings comes after the School’s significant increase in student satisfaction, as measured by the 2020 National Student Survey, and from employers increasingly looking to find highly skilled LSE graduates. In the category "Career after 15 months", LSE History reached 2nd place nationally for percentage of graduates who find graduate-level jobs, or are in further study at professional or HE level, within fifteen months of graduation.
Dr Paul Stock on Britain's place in Europe
Controversy about Britain’s place in Europe has dominated British politics for the last several decades. But the concerns and passions of the present day are not new; in fact, these debates have been present in British popular culture for a very long time. Read Dr Paul Stock's piece for the LSE Politics blog, based on the findings of his latest book. He discusses how debates about Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century hinge on topics which are still recognizable. Read more
New article by Professor Piers Ludlow in The International History Review
“Solidarity, Sanctions and Misunderstanding: The European Dimension of the Falklands Crisis” discusses the success of foreign policy coordination amongst EC member states during the Falklands crisis. However, despite this success, the support received by Britain did not translate into any increase in British public or elite enthusiasm for European integration. Read more
New volume co-edited by Dr Kirsten E. Schulze
With Dr Tom Smith (Portsmouth), “Exporting Global Jihad: Critical Perspectives from Asia and North America” (IB Tauris) is the second of a two-volume collection that looks at the extent and nature of global jihad from the hinterlands of jihad beyond the traditionally viewed Middle Eastern "centre". The book contains a chapter by Dr Schulze co-authored with Dr Julie Chernov Hwang (Goucher College), “From Afghanistan to Syria: How the global remains local for Indonesian militant Islamists”. Read more
Dr Joanna Lewis wins British Academy Research Award
Dr Lewis won a British Academy 2020 Special Research Award Grant: Covid-19 Scheme to set up a small team to explore high death rates among Somali communities in some of the poorest parts of London. The project entitled, “A Study of Caabuga-Corona in the Somali Diaspora: Histories of COVID-19, Male Elders and Community Responses in Tower Hamlets and the East End of London”, was selected out of 842 eligible applications with a success rate of 6.6%. Dr Lewis was awarded close to the maximum on offer (£10,000). Read more about the scheme.
German edition of Dr Kristina Spohr’s newest book wins best book prize
The German edition of Dr Kristina Spohr’s book Post Wall, Post Square: Rebuilding the World after 1989 has won the prize for best book in political science 2020 in Germany.The prize is awarded every two years by the German Political Science Association and the Foundation for Science and Democracy. They said that Dr Spohr's book combines and advances the fields of contemporary history and political science in several areas, and offers explanations on the major global historical turning point of 1989 in an accessible fashion to the wider public. Read more. The announcement of Dr Spohr’ book prize was soon released in the Politics section of Germany’s Rheinische Post on 8 July. Reviewer Martin Kessler praised the book’s gripping description of the rapid restructuring of the political world order after the end of the east-west division, noting Spohr’s close observation of the human side of these relationships. Read the full review.
PhD Alumnus Dr Tommaso Milani's first book now published by Palgrave
Based on his PhD research supervised by Professor Piers Ludlow and Professor Heather Jones (now based at UCL), Hendrik de Man and Social Democracy examines the impact de Man’s works and activism had on Western European social democracy between the two world wars. Dr Milani is currently a teaching fellow in European and International History at Sciences Po Paris, France. Read more
Dr Kristina Spohr participates in “Baltic States 1939-40” webinar at the Cambridge Centre for Geopolitics
Marking the eightieth anniversary of the occupation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union in June 1940, the panelists discussed the UK’s decision to acquiesce to Stalin’s coup, what the occupation means today, and where the UK sits within the Baltic, past and present. Other panel participants included Charles Clarke, Former Home Secretary (chair), Kaja Tael, Former Estonian Ambassador to the European Union, now Estonian Ambassador at Large for Climate and Energy Policy, and Patrick Salmon, Chief historian at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Read more and watch the recording of the event.
New piece by Professor Piers Ludlow
Professor Ludlow has written a new piece for the “Europe and the Rhetoric of Crisis” Forum on H/Soz/Kult. He discusses the basic pattern of the EU’s recurrent flirtation with the numerous disasters which have afflicted it since 2009 and suggests that only by invoking imminent doom can a system as cumbersome and risk-averse as the EU be spurred into action. Read the piece here.
New article by Dr Gagan Sood
Read the latest article from Dr Gagan Sood in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: “Knowledge and the Art of Governance” advances our understanding of governance in the Mughal and Ottoman empires, but also contributes to a more recent interest in a region spanning much of South Asia and the Middle East that was formative for the global genesis of the modern world. Open access.
Guest Teacher Dr Sajjan Gohel leads pioneering project recently published by NATO
The landmark project, Counter-Terrorism Reference Curriculum (CTRC), supports interested Allies and partner countries in enhancing their capacities to develop national skills and improve counter-terrorism strategies. Over 100 experts from nations across five continents contributed to the writing, drafting, and editing of the final product, including 25 LSE Alumni and former students of Dr Gohel. The CTRC provided them with the opportunity to transfer knowledge from academia to the policy and practitioner world. Read more
William Loux (MSc History of International Relations, 2018) publishes article in Agricultural History Review
The article argues that Harold Wilson’s Labour government failed to achieve any of its initial goals on reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, because at the moment that negotiators looked to remake the programme, global food prices temporarily spiked well above European prices. They decided, rather, to maintain the status quo rather than structurally reform the programme.
The article is a revised version of William's Master's dissertation, supervised by Professor Piers Ludlow. Read it here (free for LSE users).
PhD student Hamish McDougall publishes new article in the International History Review
“Buttering Up: Britain, New Zealand and negotiations for European Communities enlargement, 1970–71” discusses the extent to which Britain’s entry to the European Community in 1973 was a "shock" for Commonwealth Nations, with some of its former colonies and long-time allies feeling a sense of abandonment or betrayal. Hamish focuses on the case of New Zealand, who exerted disproportionate influence on the terms of British entry and Britain’s extraordinary lengths in securing a satisfactory arrangement for New Zealand in accession negotiations. Read the article here. Free for LSE users here.
Book contract
Our warmest congratulations to LSE Fellow Dr Pete Millwood, who recently signed a contract with Cambridge University Press for his first book. The book, to be published in the Cambridge Studies in US Foreign Relations series, analyses how physicists, acrobats, seismologists and many other Americans and Chinese beyond government remade the US-China relationship from 1969-1978. Stay tuned for the release in print.
Professor Marc David Baer’s second book this year out now
Released by Columbia University Press, German, Jew, Muslim, Gay: The Life and Times of Hugo Marcus uses the unconventional story of Hugo Marcus to reveal new aspects of the interconnected histories of Jewish and Muslim individuals and communities, including Muslim responses to Nazism and Muslim experiences of the Holocaust. Read more
New book by Dr Tanya Harmer
Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America by Dr Tanya Harmer, released by The University of North Carolina Press, is out now. Inspired by the Cuban Revolution, Beatriz Allende (1942–1977) and her generation drove political campaigns, university reform, public health programs, internationalist guerrilla insurgencies, and government strategies. Centering Beatriz’s life within the global contours of the Cold War era, Dr Harmer exposes the promises and paradoxes of the revolutionary wave that swept through Latin America in the long 1960s.
Dr Umoren awarded fellowship
We are delighted to announce that Dr Imaobong Umoren has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2020/21 for her project on Eugenia Charles, the first female Prime Minister in the Anglophone Caribbean and LSE Alumna. The project is entitled "'Iron Lady of the Caribbean': the life and politics of Dame Eugenia Charles".
New book by Professor Baer
Professor Marc David Baer’s latest book Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks was released by Indiana University Press in March. Professor Baer sheds light into what compels Jews in the Ottoman Empire, Turkey, and abroad to promote a positive image of Ottomans and Turks while they deny the Armenian genocide and the existence of antisemitism in Turkey. Read more about the book in the publisher's website.
Opinion piece in Haaretz
Professor Marc David Baer contributed an opinion piece to Haaretz (23 April) on how prominent Jews, from Turkish chief rabbis to Israel’s presidents to US lay leaders, have propped up Turkey’s Armenian genocide denial. That’s only just begun to change. Read it here.
Dr Kristina Spohr in “The American Interest” podcast discussing Post Wall Post Square
Dr Spohr argues that the world’s exit from the Cold War is a two-fold story: one set in Berlin, where the fall of the Berlin Wall put an end to communism and inspired electoral revolutions across Europe, and one in Beijing, where Deng Xiaoping’s crackdown at Tiananmen Square put a brutal end to a burgeoning protest movement. Listen to the podcast and learn why we cannot understand one event without the other and why we cannot understand the world that emerged without careful attention to the diplomatic decisions made in the dizzying aftermath of both events. Read more about the book.
Dr Ronald C. Po awarded a STICERD research grant
Dr Po was awarded a STICERD grant for his book project entitled “The North China Sea: A History”. The project will be the first comprehensive study to weave together the long-forgotten North China Sea into a more productive and enduring dialogue with Chinese, Asian, and global history. Dr Po aims to reconnect this sea space to the broader historical spectrum, and to bring it out of almost a century of solitude.
Read more about STICERD Research grants for LSE Staff.
The latest in the New Statesman: “China’s new Silk Road” by Dr Kristina Spohr
Now that coronavirus infections appear to have dropped in China and its economy shows signs of recovering, Xi Jinping is turning a propaganda disaster into a political opportunity by offering humanitarian aid to Italy and other European states. His vigorous pandemic diplomacy seeks to reframe his country’s role in the corona affair at a time of Euro-Atlantic disunion. But it should also be understood in the larger context of Chinese foreign policy, as nothing less than the new “Health Silk Road”. Read Dr Spohr's full article (1 April) here.
New editions of Dr Kristina Spohr’s latest book Post Wall Post Square being released
The book was released on 24 March in the US by Yale University Press and a Spanish edition will be published with Editorial Taurus on 14 May. Post Wall Post Square (HarperCollins, 2019)offers a bold new interpretation of the revolutions of 1989, showing how a new world order was forged – without major conflict. Check out the new editions: Yale University Press and Editorial Taurus.
Dr Kristina Spohr in the Yale University Press Blog
Dr Spohr has contributed a new post to the Yale University Press Blog (16 March). Although the American international order seems to be waning, it is equally apparent that China, for all its ambitions, has no intention of assuming heavy international burdens and responsibilities. The result might therefore be a highly problematic power vacuum, which would make it much harder to manage future crises. Read more
Staff news
Jake Richards will join us from August as Assistant Professor in African History. He is a historian of slavery and emancipation, working primarily on the African diaspora in the nineteenth-century South Atlantic world. His research on "liberated Africans" has been funded by the AHRC and US-UK Fulbright Commission. Jake's article in Past and Present won the Royal Historical Society's 2019 Alexander Prize. Having previously studied at the University of Cambridge, he is joining LSE from Durham, where he is currently Assistant Professor of Modern British History.
Following the most recent round of the School's review and promotion process, Dr Ronald C. Po has passed major review and been promoted to Associate Professor and Dr Kristina Spohr has been promoted to full Professor. Both positions will become effective on 1 August.
Dr David Motadel has a new piece in The New York Review of Books
“What Do the Hohenzollerns Deserve?” (26 March issue) explores the controversy over the financial and material compensation demanded by the Hohenzollern family. This controversy is not only about the long shadows cast by the Nazi period, argues Dr Motadel, but also about the place of the monarchical heritage in today’s democratic Germany. Read it online for free here.
2019 MSc History of International Relations student nominated for dissertation prize
Joshua Chee received a “Highly Commended” award from LSE Southeast Asia (SEAC) for his dissertation, “The Growth of Colonial Intelligence Networks in Singapore during the Great War, 1914-1918” (supervised by Dr Kirsten E. Schulze). The UK Postgraduate Dissertation Prize is a new annual nationwide award to showcase outstanding postgraduate student research on Southeast Asia in the UK. One of SEAC's reviewers found it "full of extraordinary data and insights". Read more
Documentary film: Rosenöl und Deutscher Geist
Created by our own Dr Dina Gusejnova and Professor Richard Bourke (King’s College, Cambridge), “Rosenöl und Deutscher Geist: The Fortunes of German Intellectual History” presents the fortunes of a distinctly German phenomenon. The documentary explores how the history of ideas declined in Germany after a period of innovation and prosperity that lasted through the long nineteenth century.
New piece in the LSE Brexit Blog by Professor Piers Ludlow
“Britain needs friends in the post-Brexit era. Alienating EU allies would be counter-productive” argues that the discussion underway should heed not only to how we go on doing business with our neighbours and foreign partners, but also to the type of strong and structured political relationship which will maximize the chance of our preserving some say in the way in which Europe develops. Read it here.
Third-year student co-organises German Symposium
Third-year BSc Government and History student Jakob Franke co-organised this year's German Symposium (3-7 February), a high-profile, student-led event that’s run every year since 2002. One of this year’s panels included our own Gerda Henkel Visiting Professor Ulrich Herbert, who debated the 30th anniversary of German reunification with Professor Ferdinand Kirchhof (Former Vice-President, German Constitutional Court) and Norbert F. Pötzl (Journalist and Author). Read more about the event.
Book review
Another book review by Dr Joanna Lewis was published in the 16 January issue of the Times Higher Education. She offered her comments on Licentious Worlds: Sex and Exploitation in Global Empires by Julie Peakman, a panoramic study of sexual behaviour and attempts to control it across five centuries of globalising empires. Find out what Dr Lewis had to say about this new release.
“The Myth of Middle-Class Liberalism”
New opinion piece by Dr David Motadel out in The New York Times on 22 January. The bourgeois are supposed to ensure open, democratic societies. In fact, they rarely have. Read it here.
Dr Roham Alvandi in the Washington Post
Dr Alvandi, a historian of Iran and Modern Middle East, spoke with Miriam Berger about the past, present, and future of the Pahlavi family. They talked about history, memory, and Iranian nostalgia for the Pahlavi era. Read more.
Latest publication by Professor Steven Casey
Professor Casey contributed a chapter to From Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates about War and Revolution, edited by Andrea J Dew, Marc A Genest, and SCM Paine (Georgetown University Press). The book explores the roles that political narratives, media coverage, and evolving communication technologies have played in precipitating, shaping, and concluding or prolonging wars and revolutions over the course of US history. Professor Casey's chapter is on "Selling a Limited War in Korea, 1950-53".