(image source: Wiley)
Article abstract:
The debate about the purpose (and uses) of studying diplomatic and internationalhistory are as old as the subject itself. This article traces the origins and developmentof diplomatic history as a specialized field within history as a wider discipline, beforeexploring more recent challenges to it. The article seeks to highlight both the scope for,and the opportunities to be found in, cross-fertilization with ideas derived from cognatedisciplines. At the same time, it also seeks to show the conceptual and methodologicalpitfalls of recent attempts at innovation in the field. It concludes by reasserting the essentialimportance of politics as the core of international history and by underlining its potentialfor guiding current policy as well as its limitations in that respect.Acknowledgments:
This is a revised version of the author's inaugural lecture as Professor of Diplomatic History on 29 Nov. 2016. The lecture format has been deliberately retained. The author has incurred a number of debts of gratitude in connection with this article, most notably to Zara Steiner, and further to Jeremy Black, Erik Goldstein, David Milne, Kristina Spohr and Jan Vermeiren.(Read more on Wiley's website)
