International History and International Relations Theory: A Dialogue Beyond the Cold War

Until recently, there has been little 'real' dialogue in Cold War studies between International Relations theorists and international historians. In many ways this is not surprising. For the most part, International Relations theorists took the Cold War as an immutable feature of the international system. Historians did indeed seek to explain the outbreak of the Cold War and the historic features that had given rise to American hegemony and Soviet opposition, but they did so primarily by concentrating largely on archival and related research with only limited attention given to the bigger issues of the Cold War world. However, as the article demonstrates, a dialogue between historians and theorists over some key aspects of the Cold War, such as the role of ideology, is now timely. The evolution of both a broader conception of International History, as well as the partial opening of communist archives and a range of new developments in International Relations, means that it is now possible to 'rethink' the Cold War using both history and International Relations theory.     

Historicizing the German Question: Toward an International History of the Cold War

Book reviewed:
William Glenn Gray. Germany's Cold War: The Global Campaign to Isolate East Germany, 1949–1969 . Chapel Hill, NC and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. xii + 351 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, index. $49.95 (cloth).     

Turning International: Foundations of Modern International Thought and New Paradigms for Intellectual History

Summary

This essay provides an overview of the disciplinary and analytical significance of David Armitage's Foundations of Modern International Thought in the context of the new international history, and the so-called ‘international turn’. It then goes on to discuss the significance of the absence of women in this new sub-field of intellectual history.     

经济外交与冷战史研究新视野

经济外交是认识和理解冷战历史的重要研究角度。经济外交与对外经济战略、对外经济关系、私人企业对外交往活动有着较为明显的联系与区别。对外援助是经济外交最重要的表现形式。美国相关解密外交档案的启示作用,一是帮助澄清了经济外交是美国实现冷战目标的最重要工具之一;二是冷战时期美国对第三世界国家实施的经济援助计划,是其遏制苏联大战略的有机组成部分。     

International Relations after the Cold War

This article, based on Adam Roberts's valedictory lecture as Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University, reconsiders the causes and consequences of the end of the Cold War. It argues that a key to understanding these developments is acceptance of pluralism—of theories, of political systems, of cultures, of methods of analysis, and of academic disciplines. Pluralism in at least some of these senses is a recognized strength of International Relations studies in the UK. The long tradition of acceptance of a plural international system, and a plural approach to understanding it, includes figures as varied as John Stuart Mill, Maxim Litvinoff, Alastair Buchan and Hedley Bull. The end of the Cold War was the result of a plural mix of factors: both force and diplomacy; both pressure and détente; both belief and disbelief in the reformability of communism; both civil resistance in some countries and guerrilla resistance in others; both elite action and street politics; both nuclear deterrence and the ideas of some of its critics; both threat and reassurance; both nationalism in the disparate parts of the Soviet empire and supranationalism in the European Community. Paradoxically, the specialists in politics and International Relations who came closest to foreseeing the end of the Cold War were those who made few if any claims to a ‘scientific’ approach, and whose idea of forecasting was based, at the very most, on Mill's modest concept of ‘a certain order of possible progress’. Since the end of the Cold War, simplistic interpretations of how it ended have contributed to narrow understandings of international order. The spirit of imposed universalism having fed from Moscow, has flourished as never before in its other favourite haunt, Washington DC. There is a need to recognize the plurality of perspectives that endure in the post‐Cold War world.     

冷战史研究的互联网资料利用问题

互联网的高速发展和网络资源的日益丰富为冷战史研究提供了重要的资料基础.许多中英文网站和电子数据库是冷战史研究重要的参考和研究资料来源.通过资料的分类整理和灵活使用,利用互联网加强和拓宽学术交流,建立不断更新的冷战史研究资料库,从而推动我国冷战史研究的发展.     

Review Article: Hot War,Cold War,New War

STANLEY KARNOW. Vietnam, A History. New York: Penguin, 1984. Pp. xi, 752. $10.95 (US); GABRIEL KOLKO. Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, The United States, and the Modern Historical Experience. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985. Pp. xvi, 628. $25.00 (US); TIMOTHY J. LOMPERIS. The War Everyone Lost-and Won: America's Intervention in Vietnam's Twin Struggles. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1985. Pp. x, 192. $22.50 (US); R.B. SMITH. An International History of the Vietnam War: The Kennedy Strategy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985. Pp. xii, 429. $25.00 (US); HARRY O. SUMMERS, Jr. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. New York: Dell, 1984. Pp. 288. $3.95 (US).