This course is available on the MA in Asian and International History (LSE and NUS), MA in Modern History, MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisation, MSc in History of International Relations, MSc in International Affairs (LSE and Peking University), MSc in International and Asian History, MSc in International and World History (LSE & Columbia) and MSc in Theory and History of International Relations. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: Students should write a short statement supporting their application to take a course. The Teacher Responsible will assign places on the course and their decision is final. Places will be assigned by midday on the Monday of week 1.

For queries contact: The teacher responsible for the course, as indicated on the course guide. Staff e-mail addresses are listed at https://www.lse.ac.uk/International-History/People.

This course introduces students to the burgeoning literature on international ideas, relations, politics and movements between the wars, especially in Europe.  We explore how the current turn to international/global history has altered understandings of the key aspects of Europe’s ‘twenty-year crisis’ – especially post-World War I stabilization, the management of the slump, imperial contestation, and the challenge posed by revisionist states.  It examines the varying international visions and institutions that contended in these years, paying special attention to the “Geneva project,” humanitarianism, and international law, assessing not just their aims and ideals but the degree to which they facilitated the construction of lasting international institutions and norms. 

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
20 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.
2 hours of seminars in the Spring Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn and Winter Term.

This is a discussion seminar.  Students will be expected to do all common readings, to participate in class discussion, and to prepare discussion questions and help guide discussion once or twice (depending on the size of the class) during the AT and the WT.  There will be a one-hour timed essay in the AT (on which I will give feedback) and an edited document collection on a topic of your choosing due at the end of the WT.

Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment:  Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (2009)

Bruno Cabanes, The Great War and the Origins of Humanitarianism (2014).

Susan Pedersen, The Guardians:  The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (2015).

Nicholas Mulder, The Economic Weapon:  The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War (2022).

Jamie Martin, The Meddlers:  Sovereignty, Empire, and the Birth of Global Economic Governance (2022).

Kris Manjapra, Age of Entanglement:  German and Indian Intellectuals Across Empire (2014).

Michael Goebel, Anti-Imperial Metropolis:  Interwar Paris and the Seeds of Third World Nationalism (2015).

Amalia Ribi Forclaz, Humanitarian Imperialism:  The Politics of Anti-Slavery Activism (2015).

Heidi Tworek, News from Germany:  The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945 (2019).

Giuliana Chamedes, A Twentieth Century Crusade:  The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Catholic Europe (2019).

Adom Getachew, Worldmaking After Empire:  The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination (2019).

Quinn Slobodian, Globalists:  The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018).

We will also read some primary materials and learn to use key document collections, including the now-digitized League of Nations Archives.

Exam (100%), duration: 180 Minutes in the Spring exam period.