Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

From the myth of Prussian militarism to dramatising the nervous state, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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Is Prussian Militarism a Myth?

David Motadel
New York Review of Books

On October 20, 1943, the German émigrés Herbert Marcuse, one of the most prominent theorists of the Frankfurt School, and Felix Gilbert, a noted historian, both of whom were working for US intelligence, submitted a secret report entitled “The Significance of Prussian Militarism for Nazi Imperialism” to the Office of Strategic Services. It rejected the widely held thesis that Nazi tyranny was rooted in Prussian militarism and pointed instead to the importance of German capitalism, with its pro-Nazi industrialists and petty bourgeoisie. “The requirements of modern warfare,” Marcuse and Gilbert noted, “undoubtedly led to a democratization of the army, to new relations between officers and men, and to a decline of the Prussian ‘spirit.’”

The political climate of the time was not in their favor. At the end of World War II, Allied leaders were convinced that Prussian militarism, which they considered central in shaping the German national character, was at least in part the cause of Hitler’s war in Europe. To prevent future German aggression, it was to be eradicated through demilitarization and reeducation. “The Hun,” Winston Churchill declared, “is always either at your throat or at your feet.” “Nazi tyranny and Prussian militarism,” he insisted, “are the two main elements in German life which must be absolutely destroyed.” [continue reading]

The Debate on British Colonialism

Alan Lester
Snapshots of Empire

Colonialism is, by its very nature, incompatible with many of the ideals of justice that we hold dear today. The very definition of the word, according to the Oxford Online Dictionary, is “the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.” As that three-part definition suggests, no form of colonialism ever developed without great, unprovoked, violence.

My specialism is the British Empire, in all its complexity over 300 years, across 25 per cent of the Earth’s territory at its height and including over 40 colonies by the C20. In my last research monograph I tried to examine how that incredibly complicated entity was governed everywhere and all at once during certain moments of the C19. Unfortunately, the British Empire was no exception to the rule that colonialism entails unprovoked violence on a large scale. Let me take the three parts of the Oxford definition of ‘colonialism’ to sketch out how the British Empire in particular was established and operated. [continue reading]

Historians urge Australians to ‘be on the right side of history’ when they vote in voice referendum

Josh Butler
Guardian

The “historic injustices” suffered by Indigenous Australians warrant a voice to parliament, according to hundreds of historians, with a new public campaign calling on voters to consider the nation’s colonial past when casting their ballot. Historians from universities, libraries and museums are asking Australians to consider how people in the future will look back on this moment, saying the referendum campaign will be a “turning point” for the fabric of the nation.

“History is made by people turning up. History never just happens, it’s a process of people turning up at moments it matters most, and using their voice to make a difference,” said Clare Wright, a professor of history at La Trobe University. [continue reading]

White Mischief

Maurice Walsh
Dublin Review of Books

In March 1951, Life magazine, in which the photographs were more important than the text, carried a story with a headline sure to alarm its readers in Washington:

MALAYA – Rich but Uneasy
Its rubber economy is booming. So are its Red bandits’ guns

The large illustration above the headline was a black and white image of fifteen white men in shirts gathered around a table scattered with open notebooks and papers in a room that might be a sports hall or a school. It appears to the gathering of a board, or a committee meeting. At the centre of  the frame are two bald men in short-sleeved shirts, their right arms vertical, a cigarette between poised between their fingers. They’re listening attentively to a man at the corner of the picture who is speaking while resting his hand on a wooden screen between the photographer and the table. The eye is drawn down to three benches in front of the screen, low to the floor where an array of weapons is resting: Sten guns, rifles, a pistol in a holster, a bandolier. The caption tells the reader that these are rubber planters in the central state of Pahang, meeting to discuss how to defend themselves from communist guerrillas. ‘Foreground: the guns they carried to the meeting.’ [continue reading]

Dramatising The Nervous State in our Era of Permacrisis

Julie Gottlieb and Nicola Baldwin
History Matters

Eighty-five years ago, on 30 September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrived back at Heston Aerodrome after having signed the Munich Agreement that removed the imminent threat of war, while acquiescing to Hitler’s demands to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. The agreement proved short lived. Within the year Britain was at war with Germany. 

The Munich Agreement has been a touchstone of how not to conduct negotiations with dictators ever since. Indeed, earlier this month Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an Economist interview: “Those who choose to talk to the man in the Kremlin are ‘tricking themselves’, much like the Western leaders who signed an agreement with Hitler at Munich in 1938 only to watch him invade Czechoslovakia. ‘The mistake is not diplomacy. The mistake is diplomacy with Putin. He negotiates only with himself.’” [continue reading]