Download PAPER 23 World History since 1914

HISTORICAL TRIPOS PART I
PAPER 23
World History since 1914
COURSE GUIDE 2016-­‐‑17
This paper explores the history of the interconnected twentieth century. It moves from the climax and
decline of Europe’s older imperial systems during the first half of the twentieth century, to the emer-­‐‑
gence of new forms of imperial power, and the making of the global South. Central to the paper are
themes of imperialism and nationalism, social and cultural change in colonial societies, the effects of
world economic fluctuations and of two world wars on these imperial systems, western efforts at po-­‐‑
litical and strategic adjustment including decolonisation, the emergence of new states and their evolu-­‐‑
tion in the changing economic and political contexts of the later twentieth century.
The bulk of this paper proceeds in broadly chronological fashion, drawing together the major regions
of the world into the shared arc of a century punctuated by world wars, economic shifts, revolution
and social change. The first half of the paper focuses on older forms of imperialism and the powerful
ways in which these shaped the colonial societies, economies and cultures of the major regions of the
world. The notion of a ‘Third World’ emerged very much as the legacy of these shaping influences,
popularised in the debates of the 1960s and 1970s when the world’s states and economies seemed to
be very clearly divided between those of the advanced ‘West’ and the newly independent but still ‘un-­‐‑
derdeveloped’ Third World. More recently, social change and economic advance in many of the world’s postcolonial societies, par-­‐‑
ticularly in East and Southeast Asia, suggest now that we need new and more complex ways of un-­‐‑
derstanding what have become in the later twentieth century, global flows of capital, people, com-­‐‑
modities and technologies. The second half of the paper thus turns to the ways in which these very
forces of ‘globalisation’, with the free play they create for unprecedented convergences of capital,
technology and resources, seem to raise again issues of power and marginalisation, dominance and
exploitation, and have helped to create the complex and multicentred global society of the twenty-­‐‑
first century. Finally, a cluster of thematic topics describe processes that have bound together disparate regions of
the world more closely than ever before in the past. These include, among others, the twentieth centu-­‐‑
ry history of the environment, global Islamic resurgence, the global dimensions of the Cold War, and
the new international regimes of mobility restriction to which increasing flows of people across bor-­‐‑
ders have given rise. These are not fully comprehensible within the framework of the very nation-­‐‑
states which were, ironically, so hard won in the anti-­‐‑colonial upheavals of the mid-­‐‑twentieth centu-­‐‑
ry. Yet they remain central to our understanding of the modern world. They reveal not only the
connectivities that have characterised the twentieth century, but also the deep tensions and fractures
of globalisation, whose repercussions continue to be felt in the twenty-­‐‑first. As the legacies of older
forms of imperialism and nationalism seem to recede into the historical past, categories such as the
‘Third World’, the ‘postcolonial’ world, or the ‘global South’, may still serve as important pointers to
the inequalities of wealth and power that characterise our modern present.
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LECTURE PROGRAMME
MICHAELMAS 2016 Thursdays at 11am and Fridays at 12pm.
THEMATIC LECTURES: Fridays at 12pm
Themes in Twentieth Century World History. Prof. T. N. Harper (8 lectures, weeks 1-­‐‑8).
A world of empires?
The global great war
Interwar colonialism: Development or exploitation?
Nationalism in theory and practice
War and decolonisation
The birth of the postcolonial world
Building the postcolonial state
Development and globalisation: Beyond the ‘Third World’
REGIONAL LECTURES: Thursdays at 11am
South Asia. Prof. J. Cha^erji (4 lectures, weeks 1-­‐‑4).
TBC
TBC
TBC
TBC
Africa. Dr. Z. Groves (4 lectures, weeks 5-­‐‑8). Africa and World War I
Africa and World War II
African Nationalism and Decolonisation
Postcolonial Africa 2
LENT 2017
Mondays at 11am and Thursdays at 11am.
THEMATIC LECTURES: Mondays at 11am
Comparative Empires: Southeast Asia. Prof. T. N. Harper (2 lectures, weeks 1-­‐‑2)
Global Mobilities. Prof J. Cha^erji and Dr N. Pairaudeau (2 lectures, weeks 3-­‐‑4)
The Global Refugee (Cha^erji)
Mobility in the Modern Age (Pairaudeau)
The Global Cold War. Dr R. Leow (1 lecture, week 5)
Global Development. Prof. G. Austin (1 lecture, week 6)
Global Islam. Dr A. Arsan (2 lectures, weeks 7-­‐‑8)
REGIONAL LECTURES: Thursdays at 11am
East Asia. Dr R. Leow (4 lectures, weeks 1-­‐‑4).
Reform, revolution and republic: China in the early twentieth century War and Revolution in East Asia: The Sino-­‐‑Japanese War and its aftermath
Mao and the People’s Republic Deng’s China, regionalisation and globalisation in East Asia
Middle East. Dr A. Arsan (4 lectures, weeks 5-­‐‑8).
The making of the Arab World: The late O^oman empire and the first world war
France and Britain in the Middle East: The Mandate states and their meaning
Nationalism and its discontents in the twentieth-­‐‑century Levant
Is there such thing as the Arab State? EASTER 2017
Thursdays at 11am.
Revision. Prof. T. Harper (2 classes, weeks 1-­‐‑2). 3