T. G. Otte – författare

The chapters in this edited volume, individually and collectively, pay homage to Erik Goldstein’s contribution to contemporary scholarship in the fields of international history, diplomatic studies and international security.

The book offers insights into the rich tapestry of past and present international relations with differing emphases on political, military and cultural aspects. While some of the chapters explore the twentieth-century British foreign policy apparatus and the different networks of people at work within it, others examine the deeper intellectual and other currents that shaped trans-Atlantic ties in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Geopolitics – in a historiographical perspective and with a focus on Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and East Asia – forms another important strand of this collection. All chapters explore periods of wider systemic change in international politics and thus offer reflections on the essential continuities and discontinuities in great power relations.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Diplomacy & Statecraft.

The chapters in this edited volume, individually and collectively, pay homage to Erik Goldstein’s contribution to contemporary scholarship in the fields of international history, diplomatic studies and international security.

The book offers insights into the rich tapestry of past and present international relations with differing emphases on political, military and cultural aspects. While some of the chapters explore the twentieth-century British foreign policy apparatus and the different networks of people at work within it, others examine the deeper intellectual and other currents that shaped trans-Atlantic ties in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Geopolitics – in a historiographical perspective and with a focus on Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean and East Asia – forms another important strand of this collection. All chapters explore periods of wider systemic change in international politics and thus offer reflections on the essential continuities and discontinuities in great power relations.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Diplomacy & Statecraft.

For historians centennial commemorations furnish an excellent heuristic tool for gauging late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century attitudes towards the past and the present. Centenary celebrations helped to revive, perpetuate and reinforce public perceptions of historical events and people in collective memory. They were fairly infrequent before 1850 but increased in size and numbers by the end of the long nineteenth century, so much so that a ‘cult of the centenary’ had become established throughout the wider Western world around 1900. At one level, such events were ephemeral affairs. And yet many left a lasting legacy. Above all, as part of the contemporary processes of the ‘invention of traditions’ and the conscious national ‘self-historicization’ of the established nation-states, they offer crucial insights into the social, cultural and political dynamics of the period.

For historians centennial commemorations furnish an excellent heuristic tool for gauging late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century attitudes towards the past and the present. Centenary celebrations helped to revive, perpetuate and reinforce public perceptions of historical events and people in collective memory. They were fairly infrequent before 1850 but increased in size and numbers by the end of the long nineteenth century, so much so that a ‘cult of the centenary’ had become established throughout the wider Western world around 1900. At one level, such events were ephemeral affairs. And yet many left a lasting legacy. Above all, as part of the contemporary processes of the ‘invention of traditions’ and the conscious national ‘self-historicization’ of the established nation-states, they offer crucial insights into the social, cultural and political dynamics of the period.