This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Photo of Askaris (local soldiers) during shooting practice in German East Africa (now Tanzania)
Photo of Askaris (local soldiers) during shooting practice in German East Africa (now Tanzania)

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From the Mã Lai Origins of the Viet to the global war on blackness, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history. Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History”

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Marc-William Palen

From the surprising American support for globalization and remembering the life of an influential U.S. imperial historian, to the fascinating legacies of Dien Bien Phu and the American war in Vietnam. Here are this week’s top picks in imperial & global history.

America’s Role in the World 
Wall Street Journal

Less Military Interventionism, More Trade?

New WSJ/NBC news polls provide what for some might seem to be contradictory opinions regarding how Americans see their country engaging with the globe.

The studies show Americans have consistently opposed military interventionism since 2003. Also, whereas in September 2001 only 14% of respondents felt the United States should become less active in world affairs, the number has skyrocketed to 47% in April 2014.

WSJ poll 1

Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History”

The Global Origins of Early Vietnamese Republicanism, Part II

Christopher Goscha
Professor of History, University of Quebec at Montreal

Professor Goscha concludes his two-part Forum exploration of the global origins of Vietnamese Republicanism [Read Part I].

The emperor can be seen seated in an ornate box, upper left, overlooking proceedings of Japan’s new elective parliament, the Imperial Diet. “Illustration of the Imperial Diet of Japan” by Gotō Yoshikage, 1890 [2000.535] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The emperor can be seen seated in an ornate box, upper left, overlooking proceedings of Japan’s new elective parliament, the Imperial Diet. “Illustration of the Imperial Diet of Japan” by Gotō Yoshikage, 1890
[2000.535] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The East Asian Origins of Vietnamese Republicanism

Located on China’s long southeastern coastal flank, Vietnam, Korea, and even Japan had long participated in an East Asian civilizational world based on the Middle Kingdom. For centuries overland and maritime routes channeled administrators, Confucian scholars, Buddhist monks, artists, and political theorists to and from the Middle Kingdom and beyond. Vietnam and Korea may have resisted the colonial ambitions of their immense northern neighbor, but they had, like the Gauls dealing with the Romans, borrowed heavily from the Chinese political, social, religious, linguistic, and cultural canon long before Atlantic ideas arrived. Continue reading “The Global Origins of Early Vietnamese Republicanism, Part II”

The Global Origins of Early Vietnamese Republicanism, Part I

Christopher Goscha
Professor of History, University of Quebec at Montreal

National emblem of the Republic of China, 1912-1928. Yuan Shikai (left) and Sun Yat-sen (right) with flags representing the early Chinese republic.
National emblem of the Republic of China, 1912-1928. Yuan Shikai (left) and Sun Yat-sen (right) with flags representing the early Chinese republic.

Utilizing a global historical approach, Professor Goscha explores the dynamic origins of Vietnamese Republicanism, in part I of this two-part Forum series.

Just as nationalism, liberalism, and republicanism spread across the Atlantic world in the 18th and 19th centuries, underpinning a series of revolutions stretching from Philadelphia to Paris by way of Port au Prince and Bogota, so too did people, their books, papers, and print technology move such powerful ideas across the Indian Ocean into East Asia with similar effect by the turn of the 20th century.[1] This global transfer of ideas, however, did not move in a straight line. Nor did it necessarily arrive through the colonial connection, even though Euro-American imperial states had colonized much of the Afro-Asian world during this period.

The arrival of Republican ideas to Vietnam is a case in point. Continue reading “The Global Origins of Early Vietnamese Republicanism, Part I”