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15 credits, 2024-25: Semester two
Module leader 2024-25: Simon Stevens
Module summary
Module summary
How should international relations be organised? This was a central question in the international history of the twentieth century. This module explores the ideas of international organisation that emerged, and how they were realised in practice in bodies like the League of Nations and the United Nations, as well as subaltern internationalist projects like the Afro-Asian and Non-Aligned movements. Why did governments and non-governmental actors create and participate in international organisations? What was the significance and impact of those organisations? And why should historians study these past internationalist projects today? Much of the most exciting recent work by international and global historians has grappled with these questions.
Learning outcomes
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, you will be able to:
Explain the origins and significance - and the relationships between - major international organisations and internationalist projects in the twentieth century
Demonstrate a critical awareness of the historiography on internationalism and international organisations in the twentieth century
Demonstrate confidence in expressing ideas verbally, both in individual seminar contribution and group work
Advance interpretations and supporting evidence in clear and persuasive prose
Assessment methods
Assessment methods
Assessment type - % of final mark
3,000 word essay - 100%
You will complete a 3000 word essay on a topic related to one of the module's key themes. You will define your own essay topic in discussion with your tutor.
Additional learning and teaching information
Additional learning and teaching information
Teaching and indicative seminar plan:
The module will be taught in five, two-hour classes. You will also have individual tutorial contact with the module tutor in order to discuss your assessment for this module.
Selected reading:
Cemil Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought (New York, 2007)
Manu Bhagavan, India and the Quest for One World: The Peacemakers (Basingstoke, 2013)
Jeffrey James Byrne, Mecca of Revolution: Algeria, Decolonization and the Third World Order (New York, 2016),
Elizabeth Borgwardt, A New Deal for the World: America’s Vision for Human Rights (Cambridge, MA, 2012)
Patricia Clavin, Securing the World Economy: The Reinvention of the League of Nations, 1920-1946 (Oxford, 2013)
Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro, The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World (New York, 2017)
Akira Iriye, Global Community: The Role of International Organizations in the Making of the Contemporary World (Berkeley, 2002)
Ryan Irwin, Gordian Knot: Apartheid and the Unmaking of the Liberal World Order (Oxford, 2012)
G.H. Jansen, Afro-Asia and Non-Alignment (London, 1966)
Susan Pedersen, The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford, 2015)
Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The History of an Idea (London, 2012)
Mark Mazower, No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009)
Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (New York, 2007)
Vijay Prashad, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (London, 2012),
Or Rosenboim, The Emergence of Globalism: Visions of World Order in Britain and the United States, 1939-1950 (Princeton, 2017)
Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (Cambridge, MA, 2018)
Glenda Sluga, Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism (Philadelphia, 2013)
Glenda Sluga and Patricia Clavin (eds), Internationalisms: A Twentieth Century History (Cambridge, 2017)
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