ABSTRACT

This handbook presents a comprehensive, concise and accessible overview of the field of Historical International Relations (HIR). It summarizes and synthesizes existing contributions to the field while presenting central themes, approaches and methodologies that have driven the development of HIR, providing the reader with a sense of the diversity and research dynamics that are at the heart of this field of study. The wide range of topics covered are grouped under the following headings:

  • Traditions: Demonstrates the wide variety of approaches to HIR.
  • Thinking International Relations Historically: Different ways of thinking IR historically share some common concerns and areas for further investigation.
  • Actors, Processes and Institutions: Explores the processes, actors, practices, and institutions that constitute the core objects of study of many HIR scholars.
  • Situating Historical International Relations: Critically reflects about the situatedness of our objects of study.
  • Approaches: Examines how HIR scholars conduct and reflect about their research, often in dialogue with a variety of perspectives from cognate disciplines.

Summarizing key contributions and trends while also sketching out challenges for future inquiry, this is an invaluable resource for students, academics and researchers from a range of disciplines, particularly International Relations, global history, political science, history, sociology, anthropology, peace studies, diplomatic studies, security studies, international political thought, political geography, international law.

part I|96 pages

Traditions

chapter 4|10 pages

World-Systems Analysis

Past trajectories and future prospects

chapter 5|12 pages

Historical Sociology in International Relations

The challenge of the global

chapter 7|9 pages

Realism

Excavating a historical tradition

chapter 8|10 pages

Constructivism

History and systemic change

part II|108 pages

Thinking international relations historically

chapter 11|15 pages

Disciplinary Traditions and Debates

The subject matters of international thought

chapter 13|15 pages

Capitalism and ‘The International’

A historical approach

chapter 15|9 pages

Eurocentrism and Civilization

chapter 16|10 pages

Disciplinary Histories of Non-Anglophone International Relations

Latin American and the Caribbean

part III|168 pages

Actors, processes, and institutions

chapter 21|11 pages

Sovereignty in Historical International Relations

221Trajectories, challenges, and implications

chapter 25|10 pages

Borders and Boundaries

Making visible what divides

chapter 26|12 pages

Reason of State

An intellectual history

chapter 27|13 pages

Balance of Power

A key concept in historical perspective

chapter 28|9 pages

Diplomacy

The world of states and beyond

chapter 29|10 pages

Insurance, Trade, and War 1

chapter 32|14 pages

Revolutions

Integrating the international

chapter 33|13 pages

Imperialism

Beyond the ‘re-turn to empire’ in International Relations

part IV|100 pages

Situating Historical IR

chapter 36|10 pages

Ancient Greece

389War, peace and diplomacy in antiquity

chapter 37|10 pages

Rome

Republic, monarchy and empire

chapter 39|13 pages

Early (Modern) Empires

The political ideology of conceptual domination

chapter 41|13 pages

Africa and International History

chapter 42|10 pages

International Order in East Asia

chapter 44|10 pages

Latin America

Between liminality and agency in Historical International Relations

part V|84 pages

Approaches

chapter 45|15 pages

International Relations in The Archive

489Uses of sources and historiography

chapter 46|9 pages

History and Memory

Narratives, micropolitics, and crises

chapter 48|9 pages

Global Histories

Connections and Circulations in Historical International Relations

chapter 49|10 pages

Historical Practices

Recovering a Durkheimian tradition

chapter 50|11 pages

Quantitative Approaches

Towards comparative and trans-regional approaches in Historical International Relations

chapter 51|11 pages

Conceptual History in International Relations

From ideology to social theory?

part VI|12 pages

Afterword

chapter 53|11 pages

Afterword

573Ahead to the past