Monday, 29 March 2021

Jessica Reinisch and David Brydan (eds.) Internationalists in European History: Rethinking the Twentieth Century. London: Bloomsbury 2021. ISBN 978-1-3501-0735-9, doi: 10.5040/9781350118546

 

BOOK SUMMARY / ABSTRACT

Representing a crucial intervention in the history of internationalism, transnationalism and global history, this edited collection examines a variety of international movements, organisations and projects developed in Europe or by Europeans over the course of the 20th century. Reacting against the old Eurocentricism, many areas of scholarship have refocused efforts to other parts of the globe. This volume attempts to bring back an understanding of the roles played by ideas, people and organisations originating or located in Europe, including some of their consequential global impact. The chapters cover aspects of internationalism such as the importance of language, communication and infrastructures of internationalism; ways of grappling with the history of internationalism as a lived experience; and the roles of European actors in the formulation of different and often competing models of internationalism.


It demonstrates that the success and failure of international programmes were dependent on participants' ability to communicate across linguistic but also political, cultural and economic borders. By bringing together commonly disconnected strands of European history and 'history from below', this volume rebalances and significantly advances the field, and promotes a deeper understanding of internationalism in its many historical guises. The volume is conceived as a way of thinking about internationalism that is relevant not just to scholars of Europe, but to international and global history more generally.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Front matter

Introduction : Internationalists in European History

David Brydan and Jessica Reinisch

pp. 1–13


Part 1. Communication and infrastructure

Chapter 1. Building a communist Tower of Babel : Esperanto and the language politics of internationalism in revolutionary Russia

Brigid O’Keeffe

pp. 17–32


Chapter 2. Coded internationalism and telegraphic language

Heidi Tworek

pp. 33–50


Chapter 3. An international language for all  : Basic English and the limits of a global communication experiment

Valeska Huber

pp. 51–67


Chapter 4. Radio and revolution  : Tirana via Bari, from Moscow to Beijing

Elidor Mëhilli

pp. 68–85


Part 2. Local encounters

Chapter 5. Speaking the language of humanitarianism or ‘Speaking Bolshevik’  : Visions and vocabularies of relief in Soviet Armenia, 1920–8

Jo Laycock

pp. 89–104


Chapter 6. Yugoslav refugees and British relief workers in Italian and Egyptian refugee camps, 1944–6

Kornelija Ajlec

pp. 105–123


Chapter 7. Local and global  : Religious institutes, Catholic internationalism and the Peru mission

Carmen M. Mangion

pp. 124–139


Chapter 8. Knowledge as aid : Locals experts, international health organizations and building the first Czechoslovak penicillin factory, 1944–9

Sławomir Łotysz

pp. 140–157


Part 3. Internationalism as activism

Chapter 9. Student activists and international cooperation in a changing world, 1919–60

Daniel Laqua

pp. 161–181


Chapter 10. Vegetables of the world unite!  : Grassroots internationalization of disabled citizens in the post-war period

Monika Baár

pp. 182–197


Chapter 11. ‘A writer deserves to be paid for his work’  : American progressive writers, foreign royalties and the limits of Soviet internationalism in the mid-to-late 1950s

Kristy Ironside

pp. 198–214


Chapter 12. Antagonistic internationalists  : Catholic activists and the UN system after 1945

David Brydan

pp. 215–228


Part 4. Europe in a global context

Chapter 13. Internationalists in flight? : Tourism, propaganda and the making of Air France’s global empire

Jessica Lynne Pearson

pp. 231–246


Chapter 14. Even better than the real thing?  : The United States, the TVA and the development of the Mekong

Vincent Lagendijk

pp. 247–262


Afterword  : On the chances and challenges of populating internationalism

Kiran Klaus Patel


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