Jul 17 2009
The more things change . . .
I’ve been reading some history of history in preparation for my next round of handling my department’s introductory graduate course in historiography. I very much enjoyed John Burrow’s A History of Histories
by the way, and recommend it for anyone looking for a look at the development of the discipline that’s actually pleasant to read.
But in looking at another navel-gazing history of history, I ran across a nugget relevant to the ongoing question of the neglect of political, military, and diplomatic history, including a recent New York Times article that produced a lot of reactions across the blogosphere, including here.
Harry Barnes, discussing Herodotus in his History of Historical Writing, writes that “his prestige and importance have been enhanced in our generation as a result of the growing popularity of the history of culture and the gradual eclipse of the long-popular episodical military and political type of history which prevailed from Thucydides until . . . our era.” (p. 29)
So when did Barnes write this account of the decline of military and political history?
1937.
Maybe the good old days weren’t so good after all.
I liked Novick’s _That Noble Dream_. It was one book I wish I had read earlier in my career (such as it is). Perhaps it could find its way into a historiography course. It is long but engaging and it is nicely segmented.
Speaking of things changing (not), saw this on JRL today. Isn’t this just the old Soviet justification for the M-R Pact?
USSR Had No Alternative To Pact With Germany In 1939
MOSCOW. Aug 17 (Interfax-AVN) – The former Soviet
Union had no other choice but sign the
non-aggression pact with Germany in August 1939,
according to documents declassified by the
Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.
“By signing the Munich Agreement in 1938, the
British and French governments staked on a deal
with Hitler. Their delegations thwarted the
Moscow negotiations on the anti-Hitler coalition
in August 1939,” says a report of the Foreign
Intelligence Service’s public relations and media
bureau received by Interfax on Monday. The report
was dedicated to the release of declassified
documents under the title “The Baltic Region and Geo-Policy.”
Intelligence materials collected in 1935-1945
uncovered the actual intentions of statesmen of
leading European countries, the service said.
Confidential notes of the foreign ministries of
the leading nations, which were included in the
brochure, gave the Soviet political
administration a clear idea of the opinion of
European and U.S. leaders about military and
strategic changes in pre-war Europe, the service said.
“Thus, the only possible way of self-defense of
the former Soviet Union was the signing of the
non-aggression pact with Germany on August 23,
1939. That document prevented the Nazi occupation
of the Baltic area and its transformation into a
bridgehead for the attack on the Soviet Union,” the service said.
The declassified documents from the archives of
the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service will
broaden the readers’ knowledge about the Western
attitude to the Baltic subject through the prism
of the real military and political situation of
the 1930s-1940s, the service said.
[...] Front Commenter mab asked about a recent document release from Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) on the Baltics in [...]