The Origins of the Boxer War: A Multinational Study. By Lanxin Xiang. [London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. xvii +382 pp. $80.00. ISBN 0-7007-1563-0.]

2003 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 1110-1112
Author(s):  
Joseph W. Esherick
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Chinese History ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Theatrical Performance ◽  
Boxer Rebellion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Catch Up ◽  
Court Politics ◽  
Research Accomplishment

This old-fashioned political and diplomatic history of the conflict between the Qing court and foreign powers in 1900 makes a significant, if not always convincing, contribution to our understanding of the Boxer troubles. Arguing that previous studies have been flawed by an excessive focus on “the so-called ‘Boxer Rebellion’ ” (p. vii), this book focuses on how the Qing court came to declare war on the foreign powers in June of 1900. Its close analysis of court politics and actions of the foreign diplomatic corps in Beijing makes excellent use of archival records from Belgium, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the United States plus published documents from Russia and Japan – an impressive research accomplishment that adds an important new dimension to our understanding this critical moment in modern Chinese history.In four chapters tracing the background to the Boxer incident, Xiang argues that the death of Prince Gong in 1898 deprived the Qing court of a critical balancing figure. When southern reformers overplayed their hand in the 1898 reforms, the Empress Dowager responded in a coup that brought an incompetent group of ultra-conservative Manchu princelings to power. At the same time, a new kind of imperialism representing an “unholy alliance” of nationalist elites, commercial interests and Christian missionaries threatened China with the scramble for concessions. Xiang is particularly effective in describing the catch-up imperialism of Germany, spurred by the erratic Catholic bishop Anzer, and the “theatrical performance” of the Italians, whose rebuff by the Qing court emboldened the conservative princes.

American diplomatic history and international thought: a constitutional perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 322-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
David C Hendrickson
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
American Founding ◽  
History Of ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
International Thought

This essay offers a constitutional perspective on the American encounter with the problem of international order. Its point of departure is the American Founding, a subject often invisible in both the history of international thought and contemporary International Relations theory. Although usually considered as an incident within the domestic politics of the United States, the Founding displays many key ideas that have subsequently played a vital role in both international political thought and IR theory. The purpose of this essay is to explore these ideas and to take account of their passage through time, up to and including the present day. Those ideas shine a light not only on how we organize our scholarly enterprises but also on the contemporary direction of US foreign policy and the larger question of world order.

A Diplomatic History of the United States.

1938 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 146
Author(s):  
Max Savelle ◽  
Samuel Flagg Bemis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
History Of

Nightmare Envy and Other Stories

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Blaustein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
American Fiction ◽  
American Renaissance ◽  
Iron Curtain ◽  
Moby Dick ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

Nightmare Envy and Other Stories is a study of Americanist writing and institutions in the twentieth century. Four chapters trace four routes through an “Americanist century.” The first is the hidden history of American Studies in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The second is the strange career of “national character” in anthropology. The third is a contest between military occupation and cultural diplomacy in Europe. The fourth is the emergence and fate of the “American Renaissance,” as the scholar and literary critic F. O. Matthiessen carried a canon of radical literature across the Iron Curtain. Drawing on American and European archives, the book weaves cultural, intellectual, and diplomatic history with portraits of Matthiessen, Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, David Riesman, Alfred Kazin, and Ralph Ellison. It excavates the history of the Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization, where displaced persons, former Nazis, budding Communists, and glad-handing Americans met on the common ground of American culture. Many of our modern myths of the United States and Europe were formed in this moment. Some saw the United States assume the mantle of cultural redeemer. Others saw a stereotypical America, rich in civilization but poor in culture, overtake a stereotypical Europe, rich in culture and equally rich in disaster. Others found keys to their own contexts in American books, reading Moby-Dick in the ruins. Nightmare Envy and Other Stories chronicles American encounters with European disaster, European encounters with American fiction, and the chasms over which culture had to reach.

scholarly journals Radiological Weapons (Excerpts from the History of Ban Talks)

2020 ◽  
pp. 184-199
Author(s):  
Yurii Kostenko
Keyword(s):  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Nuclear Terrorism ◽  
Nuclear Security ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract. The article highlights the history of radiological weapons ban negotiations. In 1948, the United Nations Commission on Conventional Armaments identified radiological weapons as WMD. Since as early as the 1960s, some states have put forward proposals to ban radiological weapons at the international level as potentially threatening human lives and the environment. In 1977 to 1979, a treaty banning radiological weapons was approved on the basis of a draft developed at bilateral Soviet-American negotiations in Geneva, which could have become an important impetus for further actions in limiting the arms race. The careful preparation of the text of the future treaty by the USSR and US delegations raised expectations that its finalisation by the Disarmament Commission would not take much time. The reality, however, was far different. In December 1979, the Afghan war broke out. In response to the Soviet aggression against Afghanistan, the United States took a whole set of measures, including the refusal to continue bilateral talks on the prohibition of radiological weapons. The author notes that control over radioactive materials was strengthened at the national level, without waiting for an international legal definition of radiological weapons. Political ambitions of a number of countries have prevented the Conference on Disarmament from achieving positive results. The author emphasises that today nuclear terrorism is regarded by world leaders as an urgent global-scale security threat, as confirmed by the international Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. in 2016, attended by delegations from over 50 countries. The author states that the issue of the radiological weapons prohibition remains pending. Keywords: radiological weapons, Conference on Disarmament, Ukrainian diplomatic history, USA, Geneva, USSR.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Bowman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Spanish American ◽  
Spanish American War ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American

The introduction provides a grounding in the diplomatic history of Anglo-American relations and surveys the main events of the so-called ‘Great Rapprochement’ between the two countries, including the Alaskan Boundary Dispute, Britain’s response to the Spanish-American War in 1898, and the US’s subsequent attitude to Britain’s war with the Boers. The introduction analyses the concept of ‘Anglo-Saxonism’ and discusses the ways in which it was important both to the Pilgrims Society and to official Anglo-American relations. The introduction also provides a chapter by chapter breakdown of the rest of the book and outlines the argument that while the Pilgrims never set the agenda for official Anglo-American relations it nevertheless played a leading role in public diplomacy and, by extension, in how people have thought about how Britain and the United States have related to each other.

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