Political history 221737 223806585 2008-07-05T22:19:59Z Kozuch 1339567 clean up + reference formating fixes using [[Project:AutoWikiBrowser|AWB]] {{Politics}} '''Political history''' is the narrative and analysis of political events, ideas, movements, and leaders.<ref>[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/DicHist/analytic/anaV.html Politics: The historical development of economic, legal, and political ideas and institutions, ideologies and movements.] In ''The Dictionary of the History of Ideas''.</ref> It is usually structured around the [[nation state]]. It is distinct from, but related to, other fields of history such as [[social history]], [[economic history]], and [[military history]]. Generally, political history focuses on events relating to [[nation-state]]s and the formal political process. According to [[Hegel]], Political History "is an idea of the state with a moral and spiritual force beyond the material interests of its subjects: it followed that the state was the main agent of historical change"<ref>Tosh, John: ''The Pursuit of History'', 2nd edition, London Group UK Limited, USA, 1991, pg.74</ref> This contrasts with one, for instance, [[social history]], which focuses predominantly on the actions and lifestyles of ordinary people,<ref>[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jsh/39.3/parthasarathi.html Parthasarathi, Prasannan, "The State and Social History]</ref> or [[people's history]], which is historical work from the perspective of common people. ==Description== '''Diplomatic history''', sometimes referred to as "''Rankian History''"<ref>Burke, P. (1992). New perspectives on historical writing. University Park, Pa: Pennsylvania State University Press. Page 3.</ref> in honor of [[Leopold von Ranke]], focuses on [[politics]], politicians and other high rulers and views them as being the driving force of continuity and change in [[history]]. This type of ''political history'' is the study of the conduct of [[International relations#History|international relations]] between states or across state boundaries over time. This is the most common form of history and is often the classical and popular belief of what history should be. Diplomatic history is the past aggregate of the art and practice of conducting negotiations between accredited persons representing groups or nations. It is the continuum of events occurring in succession leading from the past to the present and even into the future regarding diplomacy, the conduct of state relations through the intercession of individuals with regard to issues of peace-making, culture, economics, trade and war. Diplomatic history records or narrates events relating to or characteristic of diplomacy. ==Aspects of political history== The first "scientific" political history was written by [[Leopold von Ranke]] in Germany in the [[19th century]]. His methodologies profoundly affected the way historians critically examine sources; see [[historiography]] for a more complete analysis of the methodology of various approaches to history. An important aspect of political history is the study of [[ideology]] as a force for historical change. One author asserts that "political history as a whole cannot exist without the study of ideological differences and their implications."<ref>[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/cp/vol-02/no-02/author/ Freeman, Joanne B., "Founding Bothers"]</ref> Studies of political history typically centre around a single [[nation]] and its political change and development. Some historians identify the growing trend towards narrow specialisation in political history during recent decades: "while a college professor in the [[1940s]] sought to identify himself as a "historian", by the [[1950s]] "American historian" was the designation."<ref>Richard J. Jensen, [http://members.aol.com/dann01/scribner.html Historiography of American Political History]. In Jack Greene, ed., ''Encyclopedia of American Political History'' (New York: Scribner's, 1984), vol 1. pp 1-25</ref> From the [[1970s]] onwards, new movements sought to challenge traditional approaches to political history. The development of [[social history]] and [[women's history]] shifted the emphasis away from the study of leaders and national decisions, and towards the role of ordinary citizens; "...by the 1970s "the new social history" began replacing the older style. Emphasis shifted to a broader spectrum of American life, including such topics as the history of urban life, public health, ethnicity, the media, and poverty."<ref>[http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womensintro1.html Brunner, Borgna, "The History of Women's History"]</ref> As such, political history is sometimes seen as the more 'traditional' kind of history, in contrast with the more 'modern' approaches of other fields of history. ===Early developments=== Although much of existing written history might be classified as diplomatic history - [[Thucydides]], certainly, is among other things, highly concerned with the relations among states - the modern form of diplomatic history was codified in the 19th century by [[Leopold von Ranke]], a [[Germany|German]] historian. Ranke wrote largely on the history of [[Early Modern Europe]], using the diplomatic archives of the European powers (particularly the [[Republic of Venice|Venetians]]) to construct a detailed understanding of the history of Europe ''wie es eigentlich gewesen'' ("as it actually happened.") Ranke saw diplomatic history as the most important kind of history to write because of his idea of the "Primacy of Foreign Affairs" (''Primat der Aussenpolitik''), arguing that the concerns of international relations drive the internal development of the state. Ranke's understanding of diplomatic history relied on the large number of official documents produced by modern western governments as sources. Ranke's understanding of the dominance of foreign policy, and hence an emphasis on diplomatic history, remained the dominant paradigm in historical writing through the first half of the twentieth century. This emphasis, combined with the effects of the [[War Guilt Clause]] in the [[Treaty of Versailles]] ([[1919]]) which ended the [[First World War]], led to a huge amount of historical writing on the subject of the origins of the war in [[1914]], with the involved governments printing huge, carefully edited, collections of documents and numerous historians writing multi-volume histories of the origins of the war. In general, the early works in this vein, including [[Fritz Fischer]]'s controversial (at the time) [[1961]] thesis that German goals of "world power" were the principal cause of the war, fit fairly comfortably into Ranke's emphasis on ''Aussenpolitik''. ===Modern developments=== In the course of the [[1960]]s, however, some German historians (notably [[Hans-Ulrich Wehler]] and his cohort) began to rebel against this idea, instead suggesting a "Primacy of Domestic Politics" (''Primat der Innenpolitik''), in which the insecurities of (in this case German) domestic policy drove the creation of foreign policy. This led to a considerable body of work interpreting the domestic policies of various states and the ways this influenced their conduct of foreign policy. At the same time, the middle of the twentieth century began to see a general de-emphasis on diplomatic history. The French ''[[Annales]]'' school had already put an emphasis on the role of geography and economics on history, and of the importance of broad, slow cycles rather than the constant apparent movement of the "history of events" of high politics. The most important work of the ''Annales'' school, [[Fernand Braudel]]'s ''The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II'', contains a traditional Rankean diplomatic history of Philip II's Mediterranean policy, but only as the third and shortest section of a work largely focusing on the broad cycles of history in the ''longue durée'' ("long term"). The ''Annales'' were broadly influential, leading to a turning away from diplomatic and other forms of political history towards an emphasis on broader trends of economic and environmental change. In the 1960s and 1970s, an increasing emphasis on giving a voice to the voiceless and writing the history of the underclasses, whether by using the quantitative statistical methods of [[social history]] or the more qualitative assessments of [[cultural history]], also undermined the centrality of diplomatic history to the historical discipline. Nevertheless, diplomatic history has always remained a historical field with a great interest to the general public, and considerable amounts of work are still done in the field, often in much the same way that Ranke pioneered in the middle years of the 19th century. ==Major works of political history== [[Edward Gibbon|Edward Gibbon's]] [[The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]], published in four volumes between [[1776]] and [[1781]], was one of the earliest comprehensive works of political history. Gibbon has been described as "the first modern historian of ancient Rome."<ref>David Potter, ''A Companion To The Roman Empire''. (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Pub., 2006), [http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0631226443&id=xuekmwMwiBgC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&ots=8DcY1yJ06U&dq=%22first+modern+historian%22+gibbon&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=1Cjq2voCMkbr8JaYA0qO7TXXK_0 p. 100].</ref> [[Leopold von Ranke]], often considered the founder of the modern source-based approach to political history, published a number of pioneering works during his lifetime, including ''History of the Reformation in Germany'' (published [[1881]]).<ref>''[http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&vid=0K3-cga6W3mD82UuOq&id=GBTb-gYw_V0C&dq=leopold+von+ranke&pg=PR3&printsec=2&lpg=PR3 Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation]'' (''History of the Reformation in Germany'', 1845-1847)[[Google Book Search#Book Search|Google Book Search]] cf. [[Fraktur (typeface)]]</ref> ==See also== ;General:[[Historiography]], [[People's history]], [[history of political thinking]], [[International history]], [[International relations]], [[United States diplomatic history]], [[Timeline of United States diplomatic history]] ;People: [[Heinrich von Bünau]], [[John William, Baron Ripperda]], [[Wigbolt Ripperda]], [[Friedrich Heinrich Geffcken]], [[Louis-Philippe of France]], [[Hannis Taylor]], [[Napoleon III of France|Louis Napoleon]], [[Stratford Canning, 1st Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe]] ;Things: [[Noble court|Imperial court]], [[Monroe Doctrine]], [[War hawk]], [[Diplomatic representative]], [[Dollar diplomacy]], [[Diplomatic agent]], [[Son Altesse Royale]], "[[precedence|precedence among]]", [[Uti possidetis]], [[diplomatic privilege]]s, [[Envoy extraordinary]], [[Diplomatic body]], [[Earl of Holderness]] == Further reading == ===Books listed by date=== <div style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;"> * Sreedharan, E. (2007). A manual of historical research methodology. Trivandrum, Centre for South Indian Studies. * Sreedharan, E. (2004). A textbook of historiography: 500 BC to AD 2000. New Delhi: Orient Longman. * Elman, C., & Elman, M. F. (2001). Bridges and boundaries: historians, political scientists, and the study of international relations. BCSIA studies in international security. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. * Hogan, M. J. (2000). Paths to Power: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations to 1941. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521664136 * Plischke, E. (1999). U.S. Department of State: a reference history. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press. * Smith, T. W.(1999). [http://books.google.com/books?id=NAZGwyt285oC History and International Relations]. Routledge. ISBN 0415178657 * Kissinger, H. (1994). Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0743231503 * Jones, R. A. (1983). The British diplomatic service, 1815-1914. Waterloo, Ont., Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. * Elton, G. R. (1968). The practice of history. New York: Crowell. * Bailey, T. A. (1964). A diplomatic history of the American people. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. * Kissinger, H. (1954). [[A World Restored|A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-1822]]. * Braudel, F.(1976). The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip Ii, 2 vols, New York and Cambridge: Harper and Row. * Schroeder, P. W. (1972). Austria, Great Britain, and the Crimean War: The Destruction of the European Concert. * Zeman, Z. A. B. (1971). The gentlemen negotiators; a diplomatic history of the First World War. New York: Macmillan. * Sontag, R. J. (1933). European diplomatic history, 1871-1932. New York, London: Century Co. * Treat, P. J. (1928). The Far East: a political and diplomatic history. Harper's historical series. New York and London: Harper & brothers. * Raymond, D. N. (1921). [http://books.google.com/books?id=vBsgAAAAMAAJ British policy and opinion during the Franco-Prussian war]. New York: Columbia University; [etc.]. * Schreiner G. A., et al. (1921). [http://books.google.com/books?id=q50TAAAAIAAJ Entente Diplomacy and the World: Matrix of the History of Europe, 1909-14]. G.P. Putnam's Sons. * Heatley, D. P. (1919). Diplomacy and the study of international relations. Oxford: Clarendon Press. * [[Ernest Satow|Satow, E.]] (1917). [http://books.google.com/books?id=o1MUAAAAIAAJ A Guide to Diplomatic Practice]. Longmans, Green & Co. London & New York. (ed., A standard reference work used in many embassies across the world. Now in its fifth edition (1998, ISBN 0-582-50109-1)). * Lord, R. H. (1915). [http://books.google.com/books?id=x98AAAAAYAAJ The second partition of Poland: a study in diplomatic history]. Harvard historical studies, vol. xxiii. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. * Williams, H. S. (1907). [http://books.google.com/books?id=vacFAAAAIAAJ The historians' history of the world]. Volume XV. (ed., this volume covers Leopold von Ranke on [http://books.google.com/books?id=vacFAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA633 Page 633].) * Hildt, J. C. (1906). [http://books.google.com/books?id=Hsn1O-Z0mxoC Early diplomatic negotiations of the United States with Russia]. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. * Whitman, S. (1897). [http://books.google.com/books?id=NkA3nKApoe0C Imperial Germany; a critical study of fact and character]. Chautauqua reading circle literature. Meadville, Penna: [etc.] Flood and Vincent. * Phillimore, W. G. F., Mure, R. J., & Phillimore, R. J. (1889). [http://books.google.com/books?id=hGoDAAAAQAAJ Commentaries upon international law]. * Segesser, A. P. v. (1860). [http://books.google.com/books?id=KEoLAAAAIAAJ Die Beziehungen der Schweizer zu Mathias Corvinus, König von Ungarn, in den Jahren 1476-1490]. Lucern: Frz. Jos. Schiffmann. (German) </div> ===Other publications and essays=== <div style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;"> * Jozef Bátora (2005). ''Does the European Union transform the institution of diplomacy''? Journal of European Public Policy * Iver B Neumann. ''The English School on Diplomacy''. * Amuzie Nwachukwu, HA Olaniyan. ''A Comparative Study Of State Practices Relating To Diplomatic Immunity''. </div> ==References== {{reflist|2}} ==External links== *[http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/irhistry.htm Documents of Diplomatic History] *[http://fletcher.tufts.edu/inter_resources/dhpgenresources.html Fletcher School at Tufts International Relations Resources] * [http://dca.tufts.edu/features/aas A New Nation Votes: American Elections Returns 1787–1825] * {{fr icon}} French Website of the '' [http://www.parlements.org/ Comité d'histoire parlementaire et politique]'' (Parliamentary and Political History Committee) and ''[http://www.parlements.org/revueparlements.html Parlement(s), Revue d'histoire politique]'', published three times a year. It contains a lot of information about French political history, including about 900 references of scholarly political history studies and a bibliography of parliamentary history. [[Category:Political science|History, political]] [[Category:Fields of history]] [[ar:تاريخ سياسي]] [[es:Historia política]] [[fr:Histoire politique]] [[no:Politisk historie]] [[pl:Historia polityczna]] [[pt:História da política]] [[fi:Poliittinen historia]] [[tr:Siyasi tarih]]