New Diplomatic History network

Sovereignty and Treaties as Colonial Instruments: The British Occupation of Java 1811–1815 This article examines how sovereignty and treaties functioned as colonial instruments during the British occupation of Java (1811–1815). The British East India Company imposed the language of sover...

Available open access, Gareth Knapman's 'Sovereignty and Treaties as Colonial Instruments: The British Occupation of Java 1811-1815', Jnl of Imp & Commonwealth Hist. #Skystorians

Call for Papers: Peace Movements - A Global History From the First World War until the height of the Cold War, actors from the decolonizing world sought to build connections with international peace movements. These efforts produced new networks and pr...

A new call for papers is out! The International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization research project @unileiden.bsky.social is organising a conference on "Peace Movements - A Global History". Apply before 9 March 2026! More details at www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2026...

A white book with a black and white image featuring a coterie of women seated around a table in conversation. The book title reads 'Women and Transnational Cultural Exchange'.

It's wonderful to see advance copies of 'Women and Transnational Cultural Exchange' out in the world. I had a wonderful time editing this book with @breerob-kirk.bsky.social. More news soon on our wonderful contributors! Publication date: 19 February. @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social

The Author’s Corner with Ronald Angelo Johnson Ronald Angelo Johnson is Ralph and Bessie Mae Lynn Endowed Chair of History and Associate Professor at Baylor University. This interview is based on his new book, Entangled Alliances: Racialized Fr…

Thankful to @johnfea1.bsky.social for great questions about *Entangled Alliances* (@cornellupress.bsky.social) in The Author’s Corner! Check out the blog post.📚⬇️

thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/01/06/t...

@superoldgranny.bsky.social
@dalecopeland.bsky.social
@ldfreedman.bsky.social

Fundamentally ahistorical | Jeremy Black | The Critic Magazine Selected rather than collected, these essays offer an interesting mélange of autobiography, reflections on others, and comments on issues that have engaged the academic and author Lawrence Freedman…

Finally, Jeremy also published a review of Lawrence Freedman's "On Strategists and Strategy" (2025) in The Critic, in which he offers caveats to praise surrounding the book, most notably its failure to address some key historical points.
thecritic.co.uk/fundamentall...

A World Safe for Commerce Dale C. Copeland, A World Safe for Commerce. American Foreign Policy from the Revolution to the Rise of China. Princeton University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Jeremy Black Many historians I am afraid…

In Dale C. Copeland's "A World Safe for Commerce. American Foreign Policy from the Revolution to the Rise of China" (2024), exploring the US's foreign policy from a realist angle.
newdiplomatichistory.org/a-world-safe...

The Sublime Post Choon Hwee Koh, The Sublime Post. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024. Reviewed by Jeremy Black A great way to approach geopolitics and strategy is through communications, and so also with this …

Next is a review of Choon Hwee Koh's "The Sublime Post" (2024), about the Ottoman postal system and its maintenance through the ages, serving the Empire's communication needs.
newdiplomatichistory.org/the-sublime-...

Out of Hitler’s Shadow Tobias Straumann, Out of Hitler’s Shadow: Debt, Guilt and the German Economic Miracle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025. Reviewed by Jeremy Black War and its consequences range widely, helping…

Jeremy additionally wrote four (!) book reviews. The first one is of Tobias Straumann's "Out of Hitler’s Shadow: Debt, Guilt and the German Economic Miracle" (2025), dealing with the postwar reconstruction of Germany.
newdiplomatichistory.org/out-of-hitle...

The Politics of Strategic Choice; The Strategies of Political Choice by Jeremy Black In discussing strategy there can be a misleading tendency to focus on prominent strategic thinkers but without offering due contextualisation. For the latter, in assessing strategy,…

Jeremy Black has been very active on our website (and elsewhere) in the past few months: most important is an essay published this month about the relationships between strategy and politics, in which he compares eighteenth-century Britain with today's world

newdiplomatichistory.org/the-politics...

We hope you will read the manifesto and its responses, and feel encouraged to respond with thoughts of your own. Feel free to contact us with any additional responses, to be posted on our website.

Our latest issue of #Diplomatica is out ! Volume 7.2 is here, with great contributions on topics such as Ferrante I of Naples, and Chinese literary diplomacy. It includes a debate around a manifesto for new diplomatic history written by some of our members. Check it out here: tinyurl.com/Diplomatica

With Ákos Kopper from ELTE University, we have a short reflection out in Diplomatica on studying diplomacy diplomatically in reaction to a fresh Interdisciplinary Manifesto pushing the boundaries of new diplomatic history. @ndh-network.bsky.social

brill.com/view/journal...

Civitas Research Group - Instagram Follow Civitas Research Group on Instagram for updates on research, projects, and community insights.

Prof. Enrique García Riaza and his team are eager to engage with scholars about this topic: you can find more information and contact them via their website (in Spanish and English) at proyectoianua.com

The Materiality of Diplomacy in the Hellenistic-Roman Mediterranean The Materiality of Diplomacy in the Hellenistic-Roman Mediterranean

They focus on the matter of spaces and environment within Republican Rome's diplomacy (509-27 BCE), both within and outside the Urbs itself. The team recently edited an English-language book on material diplomacy, available here:
edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-mat...

Compared to later periods, ancient European diplomacy can be an under-studied topic. This makes the IANVA (Environments for dialogue: the spaces of diplomacy in the Roman provincial sphere during the Republic) international research project even more relevant.

Can someone kindly help me with a bibliographical query? Any publications on the #Greek govt-in-exile in #WW2, beside Clogg´s & Papastratis'? I can read #Greek with some understanding but searches are difficult. @swwstudiesedin.bsky.social @ndh-network.bsky.social @greekhistory.bsky.social?

The World Needs New Forms of Intelligence: New Diplomatics and the Power of DQ by Wiebke Denecke A government bombing the capital of another state. A national delegation leaving the UN General Assembly protesting a resolution against an aggressive state. A church community ex…

Finally, also available on our website since this summer is an appeal by Wiebke Denecke for a new form of diplomatic intelligence, that can renew the status quo and be up to the challenges of our time.
newdiplomatichistory.org/the-world-ne...

The Nuclear Age. An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival Serhii Plokhy, The Nuclear Age. An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival, London: Allen Lane, 2025 Reviewed by Jeremy Black A major work that richly deserves attention and begins not in 1945 but r…

The second is of Serhii Plokhy's wide-ranging study of "The Nuclear Age. An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival", available here: newdiplomatichistory.org/the-nuclear-.... Both essays are starkly relevant.

Republic and Empire. Crisis, Revolution, and America’s Early Independence Trevor Burnard and Andrew O’Shaughnessy, Republic and Empire. Crisis, Revolution, and America’s Early Independence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025 Reviewed by Jeremy Black Books like this a…

The website has also been enriched by two new book reviews by Jeremy Black. The first is of T. Burnard and A. O’Shaughnessy's "Republic and Empire. Crisis, Revolution, and America’s Early Independence" (2025), a general-public retelling of the US's birth: newdiplomatichistory.org/republic-and...

Aix NDH Aix-en-Provence Program Sciences po AixAix-en-Provence22, 23, 24 May 2025 The World and Europe: Diplomatic Transfers, Networks, Representations and Practices 6th Conference of the New Diplomati…

For those who missed it, the summary of last May's #NDH6 conference in Aix is now available on our website, including announcements about the next installment(s): newdiplomatichistory.org/aix/

Thinking in Place by Kenneth Weisbrode After sharing an essay I recently wrote about diplomatic memoirs, I heard from a reader who pointed out that I had written explicitly about setting but not so about place. He w…

A new contribution on the "Discussions" section of our website: Kenneth Weisbrode explores what "place" means to diplomats thinking and writing about themselves.
You can find the full text here:

newdiplomatichistory.org/thinking-in-...

Call for Papers: Diplomatic Interiors International Conference: November 19-21, 2025 International conference, November 19-21, 2025, hosted at the gta Institute (ETH Zurich) and CDHM (Geneva Graduate Institute). Organised by Andreas Kalpakci, Charlotte Rottiers, and Davide Rodogno.

CFP: Diplomatic Interiors: Spaces, Practices, and Infrastructures in Historical Perspective
19-21 Nov. 2025
ETH Zurich-Geneva Graduate Institute
Organizers: Andreas Kalpakci, Charlotte Rottiers, Davide Rodogno
Deadline: July 31, 2025

For details: delbeke.arch.ethz.ch/news/calls-f...

The Geopolitics of the Present – A Second Cold War? by Jeremy Black The pace of change of the present is scarcely unprecedented, with 1945 and 1989 both seeing changes (and continuities) that were more transformative than those so far this year. Yet…

Another contribution by our very own Jeremy Black is now online. Have a look at his essay exploring whether today's geopolitical situation can be approached under the prism of a "Second Cold War". A very useful read!

newdiplomatichistory.org/the-geopolit...

📢 Call for Manuscripts!
East and West: Culture, Diplomacy and Interactions (EWCD) welcomes proposals for monographs, edited volumes, and translations.

Submit your proposal to @iuliaivana.bsky.social at iulia.ivana@degruyterbrill.com.

Link: brill.com/display/seri...

@degruyterbrill.bsky.social

Josephine Baker, diplomat-activist Josephine Baker’s Secret War by Hanna Diamond. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2025. xvii + 326. Reviewed by Jeremy Black This study of the wartime role of the entertainer Josephine Baker …

Now online: Jeremy Black's review of Hanna Diamond's "Josephine Baker's Secret War" (Yale UP, 2025), about the star's activities during World War Two. Find it here:
newdiplomatichistory.org/josephine-ba...

The poster for the event. It reads: 2025 MIT Global Humanities Forum Series Good Governance in Bad Times "What makes political systems last and, more importantly, what enables them to support human flourishing and social justice? And when they falter, as many do, how can we understand their failutes and imagine their repair?" June 6, 10-11:30 AM EDT Michael Puett (Harvard University) Johannes Makar (Harvard University) Wiebke Denecke (MIT) Special Guests: Minjee Baek (Consul of the Republic of Korea) Giles Scott-Smith (Dean of Leiden University College The Hague; Founding Editor of Diplomatica: A Journal of Diplomacy and Society)

Join us online tomorrow (10-11:30 AM EDT) for the 3rd GHI Forum on Global Governance in Bad Times, discussing the project "Comparative Diplomacies for Global Governance". Please register at the following link:
mit.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Written by Tessa de Boer, @elineceulemans.bsky.social, @emmaforsberg.bsky.social, Juliette Françoise, Mathias Istrup Karlsmose, Benjamin Khoo Jun Qi, Pichayapat Naisupap, @annapytlowany.bsky.social, @sebjrose.bsky.social, and Sean Silvia.

Here is a long-anticipated manifesto for New Diplomatic History! Written by young researchers of the network, it aims at questioning and defining the aims, nature, and purpose of the discipline.
If you have ever wondered what NDH could stand for, this is an important read!

brill.com/view/journal...

Calls for Papers 26 May 2025 Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo Organizers: Erica Moretti, Jacopo Pili, Simon Unger Pius XII and Decolonization: Catholicism in North Africa and the Levant, 1939-1958  10–11 Nov.…

CFP: Pius XII and Decolonization: Catholicism in North Africa and the Levant, 1939-1958
10–11 Nov. 2025
Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo
Organizers: Erica Moretti, Jacopo Pili, Simon Unger
Deadline: June 10, 2025

For details:

newdiplomatichistory.org/calls-for-pa...