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Hop off the Bandwagon!
It's a Mass Movement, Not a Parade
Kristin Hoganson
| Thomas W. Zeiler's essay emerges from a long history of debates among U.S. foreign relations historians over the current state and future prospects of their field. In recent years, much of the discussion has grappled with feelings of marginalization within a discipline dominated by social and cultural approaches. Michael Hogan's 2004 essay, "The 'Next Big Thing': The Future of Diplomatic History in a Global Age," is an important product of this debate. This article, derived from Hogan's address as the outgoing president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR), starts with the good news: SHAFR members need not feel so isolated within the profession, for "other historians are turning our way." But then comes the bad: rather than following the lead of diplomatic historians, their colleagues from other fields are breaking their own paths into international relations history. "One can make the case that U.S. diplomatic historians are literally losing control of their field to specialists in other disciplines," Hogan claims.1 He went on to admonish SHAFR members not to be left behind, to hitch themselves to the rising stars of transnational, postcolonial, borderlands, and world history. This was not a triumphalist essay but a plan to stanch the losses, to prevent colonization by the outside forces that were intruding into home territory. |
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Zeiler's account, in contrast, puts U.S. foreign relations historians "in the driver's seat when it comes to the study of America and the world." They are steering the profession in new directions without losing sight of their old loyalties. Whereas Hogan urged foreign relations historians to grapple with the international relationships "outside the nation and beyond the state," Zeiler insists that the state should remain central in foreign relations history, if not all history. In Zeiler's essay, it is not foreign relations history that is in need of restructuring, but the rest of the profession, which has, at great cost, neglected this critical locus of power. Whereas Hogan spoke of the possibility that diplomatic history would be "the next big thing," Zeiler the booster has boldly pronounced its arrival.2 |
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The gulf between these essays suggests that foreign relations history has changed in the years since Hogan's address, in many ways consistent with his vision. The field is welcoming new approaches, topics, and archival bases, and the transnational turn is making U.S. foreign relations scholarship ever more relevant to the discipline as a whole. As Zeiler asserts, U.S foreign relations histories are in conversation with major historical debates of our time, are winning recognition, and deserve wide readerships. Foreign relations historians have much to offer the rest of the profession and much to celebrate. |
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But rather than join wholeheartedly in the festivities, I would prefer to step back and assay the occasion. Yes, the field has changed in recent years, but that does not make it grand marshal of the parade. As Zeiler notes, foreign relations historians did not dominate the La Pietra conferences that played a major role in putting transnationalism on the table for historians of the United States. Nor did they feature prominently in Amy Kaplan and Donald E. Pease's anthology, Cultures of United States Imperialism, that opened up intellectual space for investigating links between U.S. culture and empire.3 Ever more historians may, as Zeiler proclaims, be doing U.S. foreign relations history of one kind or another, but that does not mean they all belong to SHAFR or even identify primarily as foreign relations historians. SHAFR may be claiming literary studies as its own and awarding prizes to borderlands essays, but that does not mean that the organization deserves exclusive credit for this scholarship. |
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