Featured Interviews

Total wars do not just affect the belligerent societies. The two global conflicts of the first half of the twentieth century had repercussions in neutral countries and colonial territories that could not escape of their economic and political impact. This was certainly most evident for the European diasporas in the South American region. How did overseas Europeans participate in the war effort? What were the tensions surrounding the mobilization? What were the effects on the relationship with the adoption countries? These are some of the questions that the authors of Transatlantic Battles. European Immigrant Communities in South America and the World Wars (Brill, 2022) address.

Empires are not ruled only by force. Some degree of resignation or collaboration from local populations is needed. Despite its brief lifespan, the Third Reich was no stranger to this logic. In Western Europe, tens of thousands of European citizens took part in Nazi imperial policies of domination and spoilation, spurred on by fear of losing an unrepeatable opportunity and inspired by the dazzling triumphs of Hitler’s Germany. Such Nazi collaborators are the main subject of David Alegre’s most recent book, Colaboracionistas. Europa Occidental y el Nuevo Orden Nazi.

Nicholas Mulder’s new book The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War details the history of sanctions, their wartime origins in the economic blockade of the First World War, and their evolution from a deterrent to an actively used tool of modern state warfare. In doing so, it raises and answers important theoretical questions about the limits and contradictions of the interwar liberal international order, state sovereignty, and the legitimacy of a totalising instrument that profoundly and rather devastatingly impacts civilian societies. Through the story of sanctions, the book also offers a fresh perspective on the tragic escalatory spiral of the 1930s—the rise of fascist states but also the Second World War.

Fazal argues warring parties have stopped filing formal declarations of war and signing interstate peace treaties in order to create ambiguity as to whether the laws of war apply. An important reason for this development, she claims, is the growing split between the 'lawmakers' (humanitarians) and 'lawtakers' (soldiers). With the declining percentage of military representatives at lawmaking conferences, the laws of war have become increasingly restrictive on those applying them in times of war.

As Americans debate their choice of President, enthusiasm for long-term ground wars in the Middle East seems at an all-time low. Both candidates debate the merits of drone warfare in distant lands, or even the desirability (and viability) of a ban on Muslims' entry to the United States, but what does seem unanimous after two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that the U.S. role in the region is best handled by some combination of deploying remote force against "them" over "there," and preventing "them" from coming to "us" "here." With many debating whether the country can police its own cities in a way that does not reinforce racial injustice or systemic hierarchies, American appetites for reconfiguring foreign societies to police themselves appears to be at an all-time nadir. Yet even if Americans seek a more reclusive role vis-à-vis the world (or at least societies wracked by civil war and conflict), what remains clear is that the effects of those wars are rebounding into America itself.

In Democracy in Exile: Hans Speier and the Rise of the Defense Intellectual , Daniel Bessner tells the story of a previously little-known German sociologist who changed the way we think about the role of intellectuals in American public policy-making. Speier worked as a lecturer at the Hochschule für Politik, a college of worker's education. With the rise of Nazism, Speier's infatuation with Marxist theory, socialism, and the people waned. Democracy, after all, had put Hitler in charge. When Speier moved to America, he brought the trauma of the crisis of Weimar with him. This crisis was the result of excessive trust placed in an inherently untrustworthy demos. He consequently advocated expert governance as an alternative to broad-based popular rule. To defend democracy against both Nazis and Soviets, Speier argued, the United States had to become more authoritarian. His story traces the rise of the American "defense intellectual" as well as the emergence of what has come to be known as the U.S. "military-intellectual complex."

Please connect us to the local historians in your fields who think globally, but do not have the privilege of working internationally.