History major Scott Benigno (C22) recently published an article in the Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History titled, “The Economics of Empires: An Analysis of British Railway Investments in 1850s Imperial Brazil.” The article investigates Britain’s interests in developing railways in Brazil before the country’s industrialization. The paper was mentored by Dr. Thomas D. Rogers, Associate Professor of Modern Latin American History and Arthur Blank/NEH Chair in the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences (2018-2021). Read the article abstract below and find the full piece here.
“While Brazil is not often thought to be connected to Britain in our present day, Brazil’s early independent history was inextricably linked with the European imperial power. Using A Report on the Proposed Railway in the Province of Pernambuco, Brazil written by British civil engineer Edward De Mornay in 1855 as an example, this paper looks specifically at Britain’s interests in developing railways in the mostly non-industrialized Brazil and the reasons behind.”
Jeffrey S. Reznick (PhD 1999), chief of the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health (NIH), has written the first study of Rudolf H. Sauter (1895–1977), the German-born artist, poet, cultural observer and nephew of the famed novelist John Galsworthy. To be published by Anthem Press in January 2022, War and Peace in the Worlds of Rudolf H. Sauter: A Cultural History of a Creative Life reveals its subject as a creative figure in his own right who produced an intriguing body of artistic and literary work spanning from World War I through the Cold War. Additionally, connected to his leadership of the NLM History of Medicine Division, Reznick recently co-authored “History matters: in the past, present & future of the NLM” in the Journal of the Medical Library Association. The article explains how—since the release of the 2015 report of the NIH’s Director’s advisory committee on the future of the National Library of Medicine—history continues to matter at NLM with its History of Medicine Division achieving many collaborative contributions toward the advancement of the library in the 21st century and for the benefit of historical research today and tomorrow.
Congratulations to Dr. Sean T. Byrnes, a 2014 graduate of the PhD program in history, on the publication of his first book, Disunited Nations: US Foreign Policy, Anti-Americanism, and the Rise of the New Right. Louisiana State University published the monograph. Byrnes is an instructor of history at Western Governor’s University. Read the description of the book below and find out more here.
Disunited Nations explores American reactions to hostile world opinion, as voiced in the United Nations by representatives of the Global South from 1970 to 1984. Sean T. Byrnes suggests this challenge had a significant impact on US policy and politics, shaping the rise of the New Right and neoliberal visions of the world economy. Integrating developments in American political and diplomatic history with the international history of decolonization and the “Third World,” Disunited Nations adds to our understanding of major transitions in foreign policy as the US moved away from the expansive internationalist global commitments of the immediate postwar era toward a more nationalist and neoliberal understanding of international affairs.
This article discusses the contemporary history of South Afri-can social science in relation to the Azanian Philosophical Tradition. It is addressed directly to white scholars, urging introspection with regard to the ethical question of epistemic justice in relation to the evolution of the social sciences in conqueror South Africa. I consider the establishment of the professional social sciences at South African universities in the early twentieth century as a central part of the epistemic project of conqueror South Africa. In contrast, the Azanian Philosophical Tradition is rooted in African philosophy and articulated in resistance against the injustice of conquest and colonialism in southern Africa since the seventeenth century. It understands conquest as the fundamental historical antagonism shaping the philosophical, political, and material problem of ‘South Africa’. The tradition is silenced by and exceeds the political and epistemic strictures of the settler colonial nation state and social science.
Dr. Tonio Andrade, Professor of History, has published a new book with Princeton University Press titled The Last Embassy: The Dutch Mission of 1795 and the Forgotten History of Western Encounters with China (2021). Through an immersive narrative that draws on sources in Qing, Korean, Dutch, French, and Spanish, Andrade revises prevailing narratives about diplomatic and cultural relations between the West and China in the pre-modern period. One reviewer described The Last Embassy as “a superbly written, illuminating, and thought-provoking book on an important topic long overlooked by historians.” Read the full book summary below, along with an interview Andrade gave to Princeton UP in July 2021.
George Macartney’s disastrous 1793 mission to China plays a central role in the prevailing narrative of modern Sino-European relations. Summarily dismissed by the Qing court, Macartney failed in nearly all of his objectives, perhaps setting the stage for the Opium Wars of the nineteenth century and the mistrust that still marks the relationship today. But not all European encounters with China were disastrous. The Last Embassy tells the story of the Dutch mission of 1795, bringing to light a dramatic but little-known episode that transforms our understanding of the history of China and the West.
Drawing on a wealth of archival material, Tonio Andrade paints a panoramic and multifaceted portrait of an age marked by intrigues and war. China was on the brink of rebellion. In Europe, French armies were invading Holland. Enduring a harrowing voyage, the Dutch mission was to be the last European diplomatic delegation ever received in the traditional Chinese court. Andrade shows how, in contrast to the British emissaries, the Dutch were men with deep knowledge of Asia who respected regional diplomatic norms and were committed to understanding China on its own terms.
Beautifully illustrated with sketches and paintings by Chinese and European artists, The Last Embassy suggests that the Qing court, often mischaracterized as arrogant and narrow-minded, was in fact open, flexible, curious, and cosmopolitan.
The Journal of American History recently published a review of Dr. Michael Camp’s first book, Unnatural Resources: Energy and Environmental Politics in Appalachia After the 1973 Oil Embargo. Camp is a 2017 alumnus of the Emory History doctoral program. Dr. R. Mcgreggor Cawley, Professor at the University of Wyoming, reviewed Unnatural Resources. Read an excerpt from the review below along with the full piece here.
“Camp’s study provides an accessible and detail-rich narrative about the interactions between national policy goals and the localized political landscape in east Tennessee and nearby areas of West Virginia and Kentucky. On the face of it, this region appeared well suited to contribute to solving the energy crises of the 1970s. It was a major coal-producing area, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was engaged in state-of-the-art nuclear technology, and the Tennessee Valley Authority had established the potential for hydroelectric power. Yet, as Camp deftly demonstrates, union strikes and railroad regulation disputes created obstacles for coal production. Similarly, he uses the struggle over the Clinch River Breeder Reactor to highlight problems with increasing the use of nuclear power. Finally, he explains how the Tellico Dam controversy presented a classic confrontation between energy and environment.”
“Perhaps it’s understandable that the Trumps might want to link Biden to Carter, who left office in 1981 in shame, having been thoroughly defeated in his bid for re-election by Ronald Reagan. But the comparison likely won’t stand for long, because our current situation bears little resemblance to the political morass of the late 1970s that doomed Carter’s quest for a second term in office.”
Dr. Carol Anderson has published a new book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). Examining the establishment of the right to bear arms in relationship to the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans,Anderson’s work argues that the Second Amendment has consistently kept African Americans “powerless and vulnerable.” Dr. Anderson, who is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Department Chair, and Associated Faculty in the History Department, has spoken about this newest work with multiple media organizations and on a book tour. Find a list of some of the coverage of her newest work below:
Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, recently published an article in The Washington Post’s “Made by History” series. The piece examines how athletes have become more outspoken in their criticism of police brutality and, at the same time, more directly involved in supporting social justice and anti-racism. Suddler locates this trend to the previous decade, beginning with the founding of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2012 and reaching a new peak in the last year in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. Suddler also discusses how Black athletes – including Floyd, himself a former college basketball player – navigate the threat and reality of police violence and brutality. Read an excerpt below, along with the full piece: “George Floyd changed the world of athlete activism.”
However, one of Floyd’s most lasting legacies may well be his impact on the sports world. As a former athlete, his life story, which had a special meaning for a generation of athletes, underscored the fine line separating athletic heroes and victims of police violence. His death cemented a new generation of athletes as activists against police violence and professional sports leagues, at minimum, as performative allies. The history of athlete activism reminds us that this movement is one of radical possibility.
