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Introduction: Agents of Internationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

JESSICA REINISCH
JESSICA REINISCH*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London, Room G10, 28 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DQ, UK; [email protected]
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Extract

In 2005 Contemporary European History published a special issue on transnationalism, edited by Patricia Clavin and Jens-Wilhelm Wessels. The articles presented six examples of ‘transnational’ connections between Europeans from different countries, focusing primarily on contacts in the political and economic realms, and documenting a multitude of ties and links between Europeans at all levels from the end of the First World War to the early 1960s.

Type
Introduction
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 25 , Issue 2: Agents of Internationalism , May 2016 , pp. 195 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 ‘Transnational Communities in European History’, special issue of Contemporary European History, 14, 4 (2005), 421–611.

2 Struck, Bernhard, Ferris, Kate and Revel, Jacques, ‘Introduction: Space and Scale in Transnational History’, The International History Review, 33, 4 (2011), 573–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Iriye, Akira and Saunier, Pierre-Yves, eds., The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History: From the Mid-19th Century to the Present Day (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 There has always been substantial overlap between usage of the two concepts. The OED defines transnational as ‘extending or having interests extending beyond national bounds or frontiers; multinational’. International has a multitude of meanings, including ‘designating communication, trade, travel, etc., between two or more countries; of, relating to, or involved in such movement or communication’; ‘located or held in one place but involving people of two or more nations; characterized by the presence of many nationalities or cultures; cosmopolitan, multicultural’.

4 Clavin, Patricia, ‘Defining Transnationalism’, Contemporary European History, 14, 4 (2005), 421–39, here 438CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Clavin, ‘Defining Transnationalism’, 424.

6 See for example Gerwarth, Robert and Malinowski, S., ‘Europeanization Through Violence? War Experiences and the Making of Modern Europe’, in Conway, Martin and Klaus Patel, Kiran, eds., Europeanization in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), 189–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here 190; Rueger, Jan, ‘OXO: or, the Challenges of Transnational History’, European History Quarterly, 40, 4 (2010), 656–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frevert, Ute, ‘Europeanizing Germany's Twentieth Century’, History and Memory, 17, 1/2 (2005), 87–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Blackbourn's, David comments on Frevert's lecture, ‘Comment on the Eighteenth Annual Lecture of the GHI, November 18, 2004’, GHI Bulletin, 36 (2005), 25–31Google Scholar.

7 Herren, Madeleine and Zala, Sacha, Netzwerk Aussenpolitik: Internationale Organisationen and Kongresse als Instrumente der schweizerischen Aussenpolitik, 1914–1950 (Zürich: Chronos 2002), 243Google Scholar. Also see Special Section on ‘The Dark Side of Transnationalism’ in the Journal of Contemporary History, 51, 1 (2016), 3–90, published just as this issue is going to press – especially Kiran Klaus Patel, ‘The Dark Side of Transnationalism, Social Engineering and Nazism, 1930s–1940s’, 3–21.

8 Notable exceptions include Mazower's, MarkHitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (New York: Penguin, 2008)Google Scholar.

9 For a recent exception, see Studer, Brigitte, The Transnational World of the Cominternians (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Laqua, Daniel, ‘Democratic Politics and the League of Nations: The Labour and Socialist International as a Protagonist of Interwar Internationalism’, Contemporary European History, 24, 2 (2015), 175–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see the scholarship on socialism and trade unionism, such as van der Linden, Marcel, Transnational Labour History: Explorations (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003)Google Scholar; van der Linden, Marcel and Unfried, Berthold, eds., Labour and New Social Movements in a Globalising World System (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsanstalt, 2004)Google Scholar.

11 See for example Perry, Matt, ‘In Search of “Red Ellen”: Wilkinson Beyond Frontiers and Beyond the Nation State’, International Review of Social History, 58, 2 (2013), 219–46Google Scholar; van der Linden, Marcel, Workers of the World: Essays toward a Global Labor History (Leiden: Brill, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Bauernkämper, Arnd, ‘Interwar Fascism in Europe and Beyond: Toward a Transnational Radical Right’, in Durham, Martin and Power, Margaret, eds., New Perspectives on the Transnational Right (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2011), 39–66, 40Google Scholar.

13 Morgan, Philip, Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945 (London: Routledge, 2002), 161Google Scholar.

14 Bauernkämper, ‘Interwar Fascism’, 40.

15 On the former, see particularly Manela, Erez, The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; and Pedersen's, SusanThe Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the latter, see Prashad, Vijay, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World (New York: New Press, 2007)Google Scholar; also his follow-up, Prashad, Vijay, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (London: Verso, 2012)Google Scholar. On the Non-Aligned Movement, see also Mehilli, Elidor, ‘States of Insecurity’, The International History Review, 37, 5 (2015), 1037–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Brown, Stephen J., ‘Catholic Internationalism’, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 14, 55 (1925), 476–9. Original emphasisGoogle Scholar.

17 Mitter, Rana and Iriye's, Akira preface to Abigail Green and Vincent Viaene, Religious Internationals in the Modern World (Basingstoke: Palgrave 2012), p.viiGoogle Scholar.

18 Green, Abigail and Viaene, Vincent, ‘Introduction: Rethinking Religion and Globalization’, in ibid. Religious Internationals in the Modern World (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012)Google Scholar.

19 On ‘methodological nationalism’ see, for example, Wimmer, Andreas and Glick Schiller, Nina, ‘Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology’, The International Migration Review, 37, 3 (2003), 576–610CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Saunier, Pierre-Yves, ‘Learning by Doing: Notes about the Making of the Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History’, Journal of Modern European History, 6, 2 (2008), 159–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Iriye, Akira, ‘Transnational History’, Contemporary European History, 13, 2 (2004), 211–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Saunier, ‘Learning by Doing’, 170.

22 Important exceptions include Manela, Erez, The Wilsonian Moment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar, and Sluga's, Glenda important book, The Nation, Psychology and International Politics, 1870–1919 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as well as her more recent Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013). Also see Schot, Johan and Lagendijk, Vincent, ‘Technocratic Internationalism in the Interwar Years: Building Europe on Motorways and Electricity Networks’, Journal of Modern European History, 6, 2 (2008), 196–217CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Laqua, Daniel, ‘Internationalisme ou Affirmation de la Nation? La Coopération Intellectuelle Transnationale dans l'Entre-Deux-Guerres’, Critique Internationale, 52 (2011), 51–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Reinisch, Jessica, ‘“We Shall Rebuild Anew a Powerful Nation”: UNRRA, Internationalism and National Reconstruction in Poland’, Journal of Contemporary History, 43, 3 (2008), 451–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ma, Tehyun, ‘“The Common Aim of the Allied Powers”: Social Policy and International Legitimacy in Wartime China, 1940–1947’, Journal of Global History, 9, 2 (2014), 254–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other articles in that special issue, edited by Julia Moses and Martin Daunton, also deal with the global dynamics of social policies.

23 Clavin, ‘Defining Transnationalism’, 438.

24 The conference was hosted by The Reluctant Internationalists project at Birkbeck, http://www.bbk.ac.uk/reluctantinternationalists/

25 Convincing efforts were made by Martin Geyer and Paulmann, Johannes, The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001)Google Scholar and Mazower, Mark, Governing the World: The History of an Idea (London: Allen Lane, 2012)Google Scholar.

26 Saunier, ‘Learning by Doing’. Also see Shephard, Ben on the ‘goodie-goodie problem’ coined by Gitta Sereny: Shephard, ‘“Becoming Planning minded”: the Theory and Practice of Relief 1940–1945’, Journal of Contemporary History, 43, 3 (2008), 405–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Zagladin, V. V., Internationalism: the Communists' Guiding Principle (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency, 1976), 3Google Scholar.

28 Ward, Harry F., ‘The Fascist International’, American League Against War and Fascism pamphlet, (1937)Google Scholar.

29 Clavin, ‘Defining Transnationalism’, 426. Patricia Clavin, ‘Roundtable: “Governing the World” by Mark Mazower’, History Workshop Journal Online, 8 Oct. 2013, http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/roundtable-governing-the-world-by-mark-mazower/ (last visited 31 Jan. 2016).

30 For a very different example, see Laqua, Daniel, The Age of Internationalism and Belgium, 1880–1930: Peace, Progress and Prestige (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). An interesting parallel can be traced in the historiography, where the most enthusiastic efforts of ‘transnational’ history-writing often came from fields that ‘were not in the mainstream of the historical academic world’, including women's history, Afro-American history, labour history, history of population flows, migration and diasporas. See Saunier, ‘Learning by Doing’CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Weindling, Paul, ed., International Health Organisations and Movements, 1918–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar remains a ground-breaking and unrivalled volume. See also Clavin, Patricia, Securing the World Economy: the Reinvention of the League of Nations, 1920–1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reinisch, Jessica, ‘Introduction: Relief in the Aftermath of War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 43, 3 (2008), 371–404CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Clavin, Patricia, ‘Time, Manner, Place: Writing Modern European History in Global, Transnational and International Contexts’, European History Quarterly, 40, 4 (2010), 624–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and her quotation of Cooper, Frederick, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Also see Nielsen, Philipp, ‘What, Where and Why is Europe? Some Answers from Recent Historiography’, European History Quarterly, 40, 4 (2010), 701–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 For example, Michel Espagne and Michael Werner's work on Franco-German cultural transfer, though interesting, is of limited value for understanding connections within Eastern or Central Europe: Espagne, Michel and Werner, Michael, eds., Transferts: Les Relations Interculturelles dans l'Espace Franco-Allemand (Paris: Éditions Recherche sur les Civilisations, 1988)Google Scholar.

34 Clavin, ‘Time, Manner, Place’, 631. Amrith, Sunil and Clavin, Patricia, ‘Feeding the World: Connecting Europe and Asia, 1930–1945’, Past and Present, Supplement 8 (2013), 29–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Clavin, Patricia and Patel, K. K., ‘The Role of International Organisations in Europeanization: The Case of the League of Nations and the European Economic Community’, in Conway, Martin and Patel, Kiran Klaus, eds., Europeanization in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010), 110–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 This concern overlaps with, but is distinct from, the by now large and varied scholarship on Eastern and Central European borderlands, including Zahra, Tara, ‘The “Minority Problem” and National Classification in the French and Czechoslovak Borderlands’, Contemporary European History, 17, 2 (2008), 137–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gatrell, Peter and Baron, Nick, eds., Warlands: Population Resettlement and State Reconstruction in the Soviet-East European Borderlands, 1945–1950 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bartov, Omer and Weitz, Eric, eds., Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian and Ottoman Borderlands (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013)Google Scholar; Waters, Leslie M., ‘Adjudicating Loyalty: Identity Politics and Civil Administration in the Hungarian-Slovak Borderlands, 1938–1940’, Contemporary European History, 24, 3 (2015), 351–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.