This thesis examines the role of democracy in British, French and American visions of global order in the 1940s. It argues that 'democracy' in a global context did not reflect 'Wilsonian' or 'Cosmopolitan' dreams, nor did it refer to the questions of state representation and institutional accountability that dominate contemporary debates. Instead, it shows that building a 'democratic' global order in the 1940s meant, above all, an attempt to address the challenge of democratic modernity, summarised by Karl Polanyi in 1944 as the search for 'freedom in a complex society', in the new global environment of the mid-century. This challenge was composed of five core concerns, ranging from the protection of the individual from the modern state and the transformation of democratic participation, to the use of expert planning and modern technology to secure economic justice. Achieving a balance between these competing and at times contradictory imperatives was seen as the key to securing a new democratic order that could resist the temptations of nationalism and totalitarianism and secure peace. Crucially, it was only through the structures of a new global order that, internationalists argued, there could be any chance of success. The task was not an easy one, and the historical investigation shows how the choices and trade-offs internationalists made in relation to these imperatives entailed costs in terms of inclusivity, participation and even rights within visions of democratic global order. The thesis has both historical and conceptual goals. First, it recovers important ideas about global order that have been largely written out of the history of this period by taking the language of democracy in world order debates seriously and understanding these visions in context. Conceptually, its aim is to contest and transform how we think about global order and democracy in the history of international thought and in the present day. Instead of Cosmopolitan, Wilsonian, liberal or other normative blueprints for a democratic world order, the conclusion argues that we should, following the example of the 1940s, reconceptualise the relationship between global order and democracy today in relation to the persistent dilemmas of democratic modernity. In a global context, these continue to have interlocking domestic and international dimensions and, more importantly, continue to require choices that entail normatively contestable costs in the construction of a democratic global order. Only then, it argues, will it be possible to think about how these shortcomings can be mitigated and whether and what kind of democratic order we want to pursue at all.

In the last decade, scholars have recognized economic development and modernization as crucial themes in the history of the twentieth century and the ‘global Cold War.’ Yet while historians have written lucid histories of the role of the social sciences in American foreign policy in the Third World, far less is known on the Soviet Union’s ideological and material support during the same period for countries like Egypt, India, Ethiopia, Angola, or – most prominently – Afghanistan. This dissertation argues that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan is best understood as the final and most costly of a series developmental interventions staged in that country during the latter half of the twentieth century by Afghans, Soviets, Americans, Germans and others. Cold War-era Afghanistan is best understood as a laboratory for ideas about the nation-state and the idea of a ‘national economy.’ One can best understand Afghanistan during that period less through a common but ahistorical ‘graveyard of empires’ narrative, and more in terms of the history of the social sciences, the state system in South and Central Asia, and the ideological changes in ideas about the state and the economy in 20th century economic thought. Four chapters explore this theme, looking at the history of the Soviet social sciences, developmental interventions in Afghanistan prior to 1978, a case study of Soviet advisors in eastern Afghanistan, and Soviet interventions to protect Afghan women. Making use of new materials from Soviet, German, and American archives, and dozens of interviews with former Soviet advisors, this dissertation makes a new and meaningful contribution to the historical literature on the Soviet Union, Central Asia, and international history.

At the onset of the First World War, Germany was subject to a shipping embargo by the Allied forces. Ostensibly military in nature, the blockade prevented not only armaments but also food and fertilizers from entering Germany. The impact of this blockade on civilian populations has been debated ever since. Germans protested that the Allies had wielded hunger as a weapon against women and children with devastating results, a claim that was hotly denied by the Allies. The impact of what the Germans termed the 'Hungerblockade' on childhood nutrition can now be assessed using various anthropometric sources on school children, several of which are newly discovered. Statistical analysis reveals a grim truth: German children suffered severe malnutrition due to the blockade. Social class impacted risk of deprivation, with working-class children suffering the most. Surprisingly, they were the quickest to recover after the war. Their rescue was fuelled by massive food aid organized by the former enemies of Germany, and delivered cooperatively with both government and civil society. Children, and those who cared for them, responded to these acts of service with gratitude and joy. The ability of former belligerents to work together after an exceptionally bitter war to feed impoverished children may hold hope for the future.

<p>This project examines the events from 1866 to 1871 in Korea between the United States and Joseon, with a specific focus on the 1866 <i>General Sherman</i> Incident and the United States Expedition to Korea in 1871. The project also examines the present memory of those events in the United States and North and South Korea. This project shows that contemporary American reactions to the events in Korea from 1866 to 1871 were numerous and ambivalent in what the American role should be in Korea. In the present, American memory of 1866 to 1871 has largely been monopolized by the American military, with the greater American collective memory largely forgetting this period. </p> <p>In the Koreas, collective memory of the five-year crisis (1866 to 1871) is divided along ideological lines. In North Korea, the victories that Korea achieved against the United States are used as stories to reinforce the North Korean line on the United States, as well as reinforcing the legitimacy of the Kim family. In South Korea, the narrative focuses on the corruption of Joseon and the Daewongun and the triumph of a “modernizing” Korean state against anti-western hardliners, and is more diverse in how the narrative is told, ranging from newspapers to K-Dramas, leading to a more complicated collective memory in the South. </p> <p>This Thesis shows that understanding the impact that the first state-to-state encounters had on the American-Korean relationship not only at the time but also in the present, is key to analyzing the complicated history of the Korean-American relationship writ large.</p>

<p dir="ltr">This is a nineteenth and early twentieth century history of Irish politics in the United States. This study focuses on political identity, culture, gender, and the use of political violence. It is also a transnational history which blends the history of the United States with the history of Ireland. This study particularly examines the roles of ordinary men and women of the Irish American community throughout the United States in global efforts to bring about Irish independence. </p>