THE INTERNATIONAL POPULARISATION OF LESSON STUDY: EARLY STUDIES AND THEIR RELEVANCE IN LATER LITERATURE

Lesson study (LS) is a teachers’ professional development practice with a Japanese origin that, at present, is practiced in more than 30 countries. Literature on LS acknowledges the works of Stigler and Hiebert and of Yoshida in 1999 as the origin of its internationalization. However, earlier studies described its practice and have mostly remained under the radar of LS previous researcher. This historical and documentary literature review sheds light on these previous studies describing LS, analyses their bibliometric relevance, and uncovers the first use of ‘lesson study’ as the terminology adopted in the international literature. Results reveal eight studies clearly describing LS before 1999 and more oblique references in the 1980s. ‘Lesson study’ appeared first in 1997, but we make the case for the previous use of other terminology. Findings also show that only those studies written by authors who later became key in the field of LS have received a high number of citations. These results bring attention to LS-related literature that has infrequently been cited, granting it recognition in the international history of LS, and expanding our current view in relation to its practice.

The Kim Kardashian’s bunda

This essay was presented as the opening talk of the VI International History Conference under the theme “History and the challenges of the 21st century: politics, feminisms and gender performances” that took place at the Federal University of Goiás, Jataí, in 2018. The author suggest the enduring value of analysing discursive construction and the competing knowledges and narratives that condition our lived experience, but also that we must, as historians of, and in, the present, be aware that we are occupying socially and temporally contingent positions.

Blood Brothers: Moral Emotion, the Afro-Asian-Canadian Bloc, and South Africa’s Expulsion from the Commonwealth, 1960–1

During the 1961 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting, Canada’s prime minister, John Diefenbaker, joined with his non-white partners to form an ‘Afro-Asian-Canadian bloc’ that, for all intents and purposes, expelled South Africa from the association. Drawing on American, Australian, British, Canadian, and South African documents, this article argues that Diefenbaker did so in a bid to preserve the Commonwealth to bridge global racial divides and avert a potential “race war” in the making. The Commonwealth could thus retain its integrity as an institution responsive to global South concerns and chaperon them during a transitional phase to statehood. In so doing, newly independent peoples would be rendered culturally familiar and predictable, embedding them within the liberal international order. Consequently, this study offers insight into Canadian attitudes towards African decolonization and what the Commonwealth meant to Canada beyond its strategic imperative. By examining Ottawa’s approach to apartheid from 1960 to 1961 through the intersection of race and “moral emotion,” it advances a fresh approach to conceptualizing Canadian international history.

Bringing (inter)national history into ‘Introduction to International Relations’

Many introductory courses in International Relations (IR) dedicate some portion of the class to international history. Such class segments often focus on great-power politics of the twentieth century and related academic debates. In this essay, I argue that these international history segments can better engage students by broadening the histories instructors present and by drawing on especially salient histories such as those of the country in which the course is being taught. To elaborate on how one might do this, I discuss how US-based courses could productively examine the country’s rise to great-power status. I outline three reasons to bring this topic into US-based introductory IR courses, and I draw on personal experience to provide a detailed description of the ways one can do so.

Neue Perspektiven auf die questione meridionale

Starting from the determination that the questione meridionale – the southern Italian question – has lost its former centrality in the Italian debate, this article suggests new avenues of research and gives an example of the results that such perspectives can provide. The first section of the article outlines some key positions in the political and historiographical debate on the questione meridionale and identifies the reasons underlying the decline of interest in the history of Italy’s North-South divide in recent years. Based on this analysis, the second part presents new potential prospects for research on the history of Southern Italy, principally by connecting it to recent scholarship in global and international history. The final section of the article applies the proposed research methodology to the specific instance of the Centro studi sullo sviluppo economico, a research centre founded in the mid-1950s to disseminate the Southern Italian economic development model in the Mediterranean and Latin America. The analysis of the history of the Centro studi, born out of a collaboration between the Italian Svimez and the American Ford Foundation, illustrates the ambiguity of the relationship between Italian and American development economists and the way in which the knowledge acquired through economic intervention in Southern Italy became a tool to foster contacts between Italy and other ‚southern‘ countries.

“But the Story Was True”: A Research Note on Canadian Intelligence Activities in Vietnam

Recently declassified records reveal new information and confirm old assumptions about Canadian intelligence activities in Vietnam during the 1950s and 1960s. These records are now available online at Canada Declassified. This research note describes the new evidence and considers its implications for existing historiography regarding Canada and the International Commission for Supervision and Control and Canadian policy towards the American war in Vietnam. It suggests new opportunities for research on Canadian intelligence activities during the Cold War. More broadly, the note responds to the discussion in the Canadian Historical Review’s December 2015 issue (volume 96, number 4) regarding the future study of Canada’s diplomatic history and international action by suggesting that Canadian intelligence activities should be considered by scholars crafting narratives of Canadian international history.

Internationalizing Revolution: The Nicaraguan Revolution and the World, 1977–1990

This special issue traces its roots to a workshop on the international, transnational and global dimensions of the Nicaraguan Revolution held at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in May 2019. Convened by Dr. Eline van Ommen and Dr. Tanya Harmer, the editors of this special issue, the workshop was generously funded by the LSE Department of International History and the LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre. Most of the articles that follow were first presented at this workshop, where a lively exchange took place on the revolution's history and present-day legacies.

U.S.–Nigerian Relations

The United States and Nigeria have a long history, stretching back to the transatlantic slave trade in the 18th century and continuing today through economic and security partnerships. While the relationship has evolved over time and both countries have helped to shape each other’s histories in important ways, there remains a tension between hope and reality in which both sides struggle to live up to the expectations set for themselves and for each other. The United States looks to Nigeria to be the model of progress and stability in Africa that the West African state wants to become; Nigeria looks to American support for its development and security needs despite the United States continuously coming up short. There have been many strains in the relationship, and the United States and Nigeria have continued to ebb and flow between cooperation and conflict. Whatever friction there might be, the relationship between the United States and Nigeria is important to analyze because it offers a window to understanding trends and broad currents in international history such as decolonization, humanitarianism, energy politics, and terrorism.