Historical approaches to the study of world politics have always been a major part of the academic discipline of International Relations, and there has recently been a resurgence of scholarly interest in this area. This Oxford Handbook examines the past and present of the intersection between history and IR, and looks to the future by laying out new questions and directions for research.
Seeking to transcend well-worn disciplinary debates between historians and IR scholars, the
Handbook asks authors from both fields to engage with the central themes of 'modernity' and 'granularity'. Modernity is one of the basic organising categories of speculation about continuity and discontinuity in the history of world politics, but one that is increasingly questioned for privileging one kind of experience and marginalizing others. The theme of granularity highlights the importance of how decisions about the scale and scope of historical research in IR shape what can be seen, and how one sees it. Together, these themes provide points of affinity across the wide range of topics and approaches presented here.
The
Handbook is organized into four parts. The first, 'Readings', gives a state-of-the-art analysis of numerous aspects of the disciplinary encounter between historians and IR theorists. Thereafter, sections on 'Practices', 'Locales', and 'Moments' offer a wide variety of perspectives, from the
longue dur�e to the ephemeral individual moment, and challenge many conventional ways of defining the contexts of historical enquiry about international relations. Contributors come from a range of academic backgrounds, and present a diverse array of methodological and philosophical ideas, as well as their various historical interests.
The Oxford Handbooks of International Relations is a twelve-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and innovative engagements with the principal sub-fields of International Relations.
The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Christian Reus-Smit of the University of Queensland and Duncan Snidal of the University of Oxford, with each volume edited by specialists in the field. The series both surveys the broad terrain of International Relations scholarship and reshapes it, pushing each sub-field in challenging new directions. Following the example of Reus-Smit and Snidal's original
Oxford Handbook of International Relations, each volume is organized around a strong central thematic by scholars drawn from different perspectives, reading its sub-field in an entirely new way, and pushing scholarship in challenging new directions.
Mlada Bukovansky, Professor and Chair of Government, Smith College, Edward Keene, Associate Professor of International Relations, University of Oxford, Christian Reus-Smit, Professor of International Relations, University of Queensland, Maja Spanu, Head of Research and International Affairs, Fondation de France
Mlada Bukovansky is Professor of Government at Smith College, Northampton Massachusetts.
Edward Keene is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and Official Student of Politics at Christ Church.
Christian Reus-Smit is Professor of International Relations at the University of Queensland and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Maja Spanu is Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge and Head of Research and International Affairs, Fondation de France.
