The Practice of International History in the Twenty-First Century

当今英国社会面临的国际挑战突显了理解世界政治的性质和动态的极端重要性。国际历史学家必须在促进这一理解方面发挥作用。《国际历史在二十一世纪的实践》将建立一个由历史学家、国际关系专家以及外交和联邦事务部官员组成的国际研究网络。其核心目标是建立一个跨学科论坛，集体反思国际历史的性质和实践，以及它在促进更广泛的英国社会方面的作用。该研究网络将包括来自英国、欧洲大陆、北美和澳大利亚的知名学者。它将由知名研究人员、博士生、博士后和早期职业学者组成。这将提供一个框架，使驻英国的国际历史学家能够为关于该领域当前和未来状况的更广泛的辩论做出重要贡献。过去20年里，国际历史的哲学和方法论基础出现了根本性的挑战。文化转向的倡导者主张更多地关注种族、性别、宗教和集体记忆，以此作为加深我们对国际政治理解的一种手段。“跨国”历史的出现提出了一种不同的挑战，拒绝把民族国家作为分析的焦点，而是专注于在许多方面都是武断的国家边界上的人员、思想和技术的流动。这种“跨国转向”是对“以欧洲为中心”的历史方法的补充，“欧洲中心”是新“全球历史”的核心特征。国际关系理论家之间关于观念、制度和物质力量的相对重要性的争论，有可能进一步丰富国际历史学家的工作。我们领域实践面临的最后一个挑战是，需要更有效和更系统地与英国政策界接触，特别是与外交和联邦事务部[FCO]接触。北美和欧洲的国际历史学家最近积极探讨上述问题对国际历史实践的影响。英国的学者们则远没有那么活跃。该项目将为纠正这一沉默提供一个框架，同时建立一个结构，以便不断与政策部门以及从学校到大学研究生课程的各级国际历史教师进行接触。确定了若干核心问题，以便为四个为期一天的讲习班提供一个概念框架。来自英国、欧洲、北美和澳大利亚的历史学家和国际关系专家以及英国外交部官员将参加这些研讨会。该项目产生的主要“成果”将是“实地”文集、国际关系史教学和研究的互动式网络资源，以及与政策利益攸关方接触的持久结构。实现这些目标将使当代和未来几代国际历史学家更好地进行教学、研究和更有效地为应对我们时代不断变化的国际挑战作出贡献。

The international challenges facing British society today underline the crucial importance of understanding the nature and dynamics of world politics. International historians must play a role in furthering this understanding. The Practice of International History in the Twenty-First Century will create an international research network comprised of historians, international relations specialists and officials from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The core objective is to establish an inter-disciplinary forum for collective reflection on the nature and practice of international history and its role in contributing to wider British society. The research network will include leading scholars from the UK, the European continent, North America and Australia. It will be made up of established researchers, PhD students, post-docs and early career scholars. This will provide a framework to allow UK-based international historians to make an important contribution to wider debates on the current and future state of our field.The past two decades have seen the emergence of fundamental challenges to the philosophical and methodological underpinnings of international history. Advocates of a 'cultural turn' have argued for greater attention to race, gender, religion and collective memory as a means of deepening our understanding of international politics. The emergence of 'transnational' history has presented a different kind of challenge that rejects the nation-state as the focus of analysis to concentrate on the flow of people, ideas and technologies across what are in many ways arbitrary national frontiers. This 'transnational turn' complements a turn away from 'Eurocentric' historical approaches that is a central feature of the new 'global history'. Debates among international relations [IR] theorists over the relative importance of ideas, institutions and material power have the potential to further enrich the work of international historians. A final challenge to practices in our field is the need to engage more fruitfully and systematically with the UK policy community in general, and with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office [FCO] in particular. International historians in North America and Europe have recently been active in addressing the implications of the issues raised above for the practice of international history. Scholars in the UK have been far less active. This project will provide a framework for redressing this silence while at the same time creating structures for ongoing engagement with the policy community as well as teachers of international history at all levels from schools to postgraduate university courses. A number of core questions have been identified to provide a conceptual framework for four one-day workshops. Historians and IR specialists from the UK, Europe, North America and Australia and FCO officials will participate in these workshops. The chief 'outputs' produced by the project will be a 'state of the field' collection of essays, an inter-active web-based resource for teaching and research in the history of international relations and durable structures for engagement with policy stakeholders. Achieving these aims will leave the present and future generations of international historians better-equipped to teach, research and to contribute more effectively to meeting the ever-changing international challenges of our time.