As someone with my feet in two fields—labor history and diplomatic history—I’ve often felt more comfortable in the former than the latter. To labor historians, the importance of research on the international perspectives and activities of workers and labor activists has long been a given. By contrast, this proposition has been a tough sell in…
Tag: reflections
H-Diplo Essay 267- Shen Zhihua on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
I turned seventy on April 20, 2020. There is an old saying in China: “A man seldom lives to be seventy years old.” You can’t help but sigh helplessly. It is not uncommon that old age clouds your memory. Perhaps, too, it is still too early to pass the final judgment on me. But when…
H-Diplo Essay 266- Mark A. Stoler on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
I think I always loved the study of history, even at New York City’s Bronx High School of Science, where one of my social studies teachers introduced me to historical revisionism by questioning in class the high opinion in which the textbooks then held President Woodrow Wilson. By the time I entered the City College…
H-Diplo Essay 264- Anders Stephanson on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
There was Vietnam, of course, but one must begin with Novaya Zemlya. It was on these remote islands in the arctic northeast of Scandinavia that, in October 1961, the Soviet Union tested the biggest nuclear device ever (before or since): a massive atmospheric blast of some hundred megatons (we were told). In reality, it seems…
H-Diplo Essay 257- Matthew Evangelista on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
In retrospect I trace the sources of my research and teaching interests to Mr. Delaney’s eighth grade social studies class at Parker Junior High School in Reading, Massachusetts. Not that I was particularly interested in social studies or history in those days. Like everyone else in class, I did my best to earn the reward…
H-Diplo Essay 255- Tsuyoshi Hasegawa on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
I have had a somewhat unique professional career. I was born in Japan and graduated from a Japanese university. I came to the United States to study Russian history, received my Ph.D. in the United States, and taught in the United States and Japan. I acquired American citizenship. I have made numerous trips to the…
H-Diplo Essay 253- William Stueck on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
I entered Springfield College in the fall of 1963 intending to become a professional baseball player and, secondarily, a high school history teacher. Two things happened in my junior year that drastically altered my plans. First, Frank Carpenter, a former China specialist in the State Department, came to Springfield to teach Chinese and Modern European…
H-Diplo Essay 251- Philip Zelikow on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
Like many others, I was a child of U.S. foreign policy. During the Second World War my mother, while a teenager, found work as a civilian secretary for the Army to help support her invalid father. After the war, once she turned 21, the Army sent her to work at bases in occupied Japan and…
H-Diplo Essay 250- Jonathan Haslam on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
Not until reading this account did I realise that I spent my entire adult life as an intellectual tourist. School had introduced me to early modern British and European history—one of three disciplines I studied from the age of sixteen. It afforded a first taste of historical research with an unheralded but impressive public lecture…
H-Diplo Essay 246- Howard Jones on Learning the Scholar’s Craft: Reflections of Historians and International Relations Scholars
My interest in history began during my junior year in high school, when (and yes, I am serious) I took U.S. History taught by the football coach in East Gary, Indiana. Granted, he focused on the subject only two or three days a week during football season. He usually devoted Monday to previewing the game…