We are delighted to welcome Professor Bradley Simpson (University of Connecticut). He will be discussing his new book The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transformation of International Order, 1941–2000 (Oxford University Press, Oct. 2025). His talk is jointly convened by the Centre for Histories of Violence and Conflict and the Centre for Imperial and Global History.
Wednesday 19 November 2025, 2:30pm-4pm
Amory B310 and on Teams
Abstract: The idea of self-determination is one of the most significant in modern international politics. For more than a century, diplomats, lawyers, scholars, activists, and ordinary people in every part of the globe have wrestled with its meaning and implications for decolonization, human rights, sovereignty, and international order. This talk will examine self-determination as a century-long contest between contending visions of sovereignty and rights whose meaning has often emerged not just from the United Nations and great power diplomacy but from the claims of peoples, places, and movements on the margins of international society.
Click here to read the book’s introduction for free until 1 December.
Bio: Brad Simpson is Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. He teaches and researches twentieth century U.S. foreign relations and international history, and has an interest in US-southeast relations, political economy, human rights and development. His first book, Economists with Guns: Authoritarian Development and U.S.-Indonesian Relations, 1960-1968 (Stanford 2008) explores the intersection of anti-Communism and development thinking in shaping U.S. Indonesian relations. He is also founder and director of a project at the non-profit National Security Archive to declassify U.S. government documents concerning Indonesia and East Timor during the reign of General Suharto (1966-1998). This project will serve as the basis for a study of U.S.-Indonesian-international relations from 1965 to 1999, exploring how the international community’s embrace of an authoritarian regime in Indonesia shaped development, civil-military relations, human rights and Islamic politics.
Imperial & Global Forum 
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