Kimberly Quinney: On Globalization and Diplomatic History
[Kimber Quinney is a full-time Lecturer in the History Department at the California State University, San Marcos. She holds an MA in international relations from the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., and a PhD in history from UC Santa Barbara.]
As an adjunct faculty member at CSU San Marcos, I wear many hats in the classroom. The two I wear most often, however, are teaching U.S. foreign relations in the history department and teaching globalization in the global studies program. This semester, as it happens, I’ll be wearing both hats. So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about globalization and its impact on diplomatic history.
We diplomatic historians presume that globalization should have a positive impact on the field. Way back in 2001, Thomas W. Zeiler spoke of the benefits of globalization for diplomatic historians. “Globalization should not be alien to us,” he argued. The framework of globalization “might help diplomatic historians to reintegrate themselves into the mainstream of the historic profession (in which we were once the leaders), end our incessant insecurity, and address topics of concern to the public and academics alike.” It poses an opportunity, he asserted, “to latch on to the phenomena of our times and place history in a new context.” Zeiler concluded by urging us to “heed the words of a foremost corporate globalizer and ‘Just Do It!’”[1]
And I did. I was a convert to the idea of globalization. I heeded the call three years later by Michael Hogan and others to embrace globalization and its benefits for diplomatic history, to recognize that we’re in the midst of a new and very different paradigm shift in our field as a consequence of globalization.[2] I thought long and hard about the need to redefine, redescribe, and, as Akira Iriye insists, “reinvent” ourselves accordingly.[3] And, yet, when it comes to bringing this paradigmatic shift into the classroom, I have to confess that I must be doing it wrong. Or more discouraging still (but please don’t tell my fellow converts) I’m not convinced that everyone else is doing it right.
In preparing two courses that I was to teach simultaneously—the United States in the Cold War Era and Global Studies—a lack of congruity became apparent. I sought to make a more explicit, deliberate connection between the content of each course. How enlightening it was going to be, I thought, to be able to explain the history of the Cold War using globalization as a framework of analysis. How illuminating to reposition the Cold War in a more dynamic, international context. I assigned new readings that I was confident would provoke new kinds of discussion about the impact of the Cold War, for example, on the Global South. But the truth is that in the process of teaching about the United States in the Cold War, it quickly became apparent that finding ways to “globalize” that story is much trickier than one might expect. To decenter the role of the United States in the Cold War—as so many of my esteemed colleagues encourage me to do—is highly enticing.[4] But to actually teach Cold War history with globalization as the driving force posed challenges for my students that I had not anticipated.
Put simply, I have found it to be extremely difficult to give students a clear, correct and accurate sense of what happened in the East-West standoff without treating Uncle Sam as one of the leading characters. It makes for a much more complex and compelling drama to bring onto the Cold War scene the numerous other actors—from Iran to Cuba to Vietnam—but as teachers, we risk the students’ losing the plot entirely if those minor (“minor” in a global sense) actors upstage the central protagonists of the global conflict.
The reason, it seems to me, is that the internationalization of diplomatic history and the globalization of diplomatic history are not the same thing.[5] There’s a good justification for the creation of global studies as a separate field of study. Just as diplomatic history and international relations share much in common but remain fundamentally different disciplines, so too should it be with the study of globalization and the history of U.S. foreign relations...
Read entire article at Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
As an adjunct faculty member at CSU San Marcos, I wear many hats in the classroom. The two I wear most often, however, are teaching U.S. foreign relations in the history department and teaching globalization in the global studies program. This semester, as it happens, I’ll be wearing both hats. So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about globalization and its impact on diplomatic history.
We diplomatic historians presume that globalization should have a positive impact on the field. Way back in 2001, Thomas W. Zeiler spoke of the benefits of globalization for diplomatic historians. “Globalization should not be alien to us,” he argued. The framework of globalization “might help diplomatic historians to reintegrate themselves into the mainstream of the historic profession (in which we were once the leaders), end our incessant insecurity, and address topics of concern to the public and academics alike.” It poses an opportunity, he asserted, “to latch on to the phenomena of our times and place history in a new context.” Zeiler concluded by urging us to “heed the words of a foremost corporate globalizer and ‘Just Do It!’”[1]
And I did. I was a convert to the idea of globalization. I heeded the call three years later by Michael Hogan and others to embrace globalization and its benefits for diplomatic history, to recognize that we’re in the midst of a new and very different paradigm shift in our field as a consequence of globalization.[2] I thought long and hard about the need to redefine, redescribe, and, as Akira Iriye insists, “reinvent” ourselves accordingly.[3] And, yet, when it comes to bringing this paradigmatic shift into the classroom, I have to confess that I must be doing it wrong. Or more discouraging still (but please don’t tell my fellow converts) I’m not convinced that everyone else is doing it right.
In preparing two courses that I was to teach simultaneously—the United States in the Cold War Era and Global Studies—a lack of congruity became apparent. I sought to make a more explicit, deliberate connection between the content of each course. How enlightening it was going to be, I thought, to be able to explain the history of the Cold War using globalization as a framework of analysis. How illuminating to reposition the Cold War in a more dynamic, international context. I assigned new readings that I was confident would provoke new kinds of discussion about the impact of the Cold War, for example, on the Global South. But the truth is that in the process of teaching about the United States in the Cold War, it quickly became apparent that finding ways to “globalize” that story is much trickier than one might expect. To decenter the role of the United States in the Cold War—as so many of my esteemed colleagues encourage me to do—is highly enticing.[4] But to actually teach Cold War history with globalization as the driving force posed challenges for my students that I had not anticipated.
Put simply, I have found it to be extremely difficult to give students a clear, correct and accurate sense of what happened in the East-West standoff without treating Uncle Sam as one of the leading characters. It makes for a much more complex and compelling drama to bring onto the Cold War scene the numerous other actors—from Iran to Cuba to Vietnam—but as teachers, we risk the students’ losing the plot entirely if those minor (“minor” in a global sense) actors upstage the central protagonists of the global conflict.
The reason, it seems to me, is that the internationalization of diplomatic history and the globalization of diplomatic history are not the same thing.[5] There’s a good justification for the creation of global studies as a separate field of study. Just as diplomatic history and international relations share much in common but remain fundamentally different disciplines, so too should it be with the study of globalization and the history of U.S. foreign relations...