Michael Auwers | Cegesoma - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Videos by Michael Auwers
Traditional historiography on Belgian diplomacy during the First World War places undue emphasis ... more Traditional historiography on Belgian diplomacy during the First World War places undue emphasis on the share of politicians and of the monarchy in the making of foreign policy. In this way, they seriously underestimate the impact of the country’s diplomats. In the decades before the First World War, politicians had generally shown little interest in the Foreign Ministry, as foreign policy making remained the realm of the king and of some of the country’s senior diplomats. During the war, as I will discuss in this paper, an upcoming and impatient generation of junior diplomats who had been schooled in the colonial ventures of the late King Leopold II, ousted their senior colleagues from the Foreign Ministry, managed to side-line King Albert I, and took over the reins of Belgian foreign policy.
63 views
Books by Michael Auwers
Studies in Belgian History, 2022
The Failed Coup of Belgian Diplomacy unsettles traditional ideas about Belgian foreign policy dur... more The Failed Coup of Belgian Diplomacy unsettles traditional ideas about Belgian foreign policy during the First World War. According to the widely accepted narrative, inexperienced politicians leading the Belgian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference made a strategic error in focusing on territorial aggrandizement at the expense of the neutral Nether lands when the political reality and international political culture should have encouraged them to avoid such overreach. However, this narrative places far too much emphasis on politicians in the making of foreign policy. More importantly still, it significantly underestimates the impact of Belgian diplomats. Examining clashes between diplomats over foreign policy objectives, this book offers a vital corrective to these ideas. It argues that an upcoming and impatient generation of junior diplomats, schooled in the colonial ventures of the late King Leopold II, ousted their senior colleagues from the Foreign Ministry, side-lined King Albert I, and took over the reins of Belgian diplomacy. More broadly, The Failed Coup of Belgian Diplomacy challenges established accounts of the First World War as decisive in the political takeover of Europe's diplomatic machinery. In most belligerent countries, diplomats certainly faced accusations of incompetence, with many being removed from the centre of European politics during the war's early stages and later failing to reclaim their influence at the peace conference. In Belgium, however, junior diplomats easily managed to steer politicians away from neutrality towards an annexationist agenda. Belgian failure at Versailles was largely caused by the absence of consensus on foreign policy aims within the diplomatic corps.
Papers by Michael Auwers
![Research paper thumbnail of Cool reception for the Cold War? Belgian historians and the East-West conflict after the Second World War [article in Dutch], Journal of Belgian History, LII, 2022, 3, pp. 34-64.](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/99228810/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of Belgian History, 2022
On the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Cold War, this article a... more On the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Cold War, this article assesses how historians have approached the Belgian dimensions of this conflict. It starts from the observation that historical research on this subject only really began a quarter of a century ago. Initially, studies on Belgian foreign policy and its traditional protagonists predominated. Soon, however, more and more historians realized that they could only grasp the impact of the Cold War on Belgian society through an approach that also included the cultural, economic and technological mobilizations of the conflict. The article concludes with a proposed roadmap for future research on Belgian aspects of the Cold War. This roadmap starts from the prism of anticommunism, which certainly does not cover all the aspects of the conflict, but brings together some of its most important political, economic and cultural dimensions.
La Belgique et les traités de paix, de Versailles à Sèvres (1919-1920) / Dumoulin, Michel et Catherine Lanneau, 2021
En étudiant la vaste historiographie anglophone sur la diplomatie belge avant et durant la confér... more En étudiant la vaste historiographie anglophone sur la diplomatie belge avant et durant la conférence de Versailles, il n’est pas difficile de remarquer la stupéfaction de ces historiens surtout américains. Stupéfaction, notamment, du comportement de ‘little Belgium’, de la petite Belgique. Ces historiens étaient intrigués par le fait que ce ‘small state’, ce petit état, qui avant la guerre semblait avoir adopté – sur la scène européenne, bien entendu – une politique de neutralité très stricte, adoptait par contre à Versailles une attitude assez agressive et sous certains égards, même irrationnelle. Ce qui les frappa le plus, c’est que la petite Belgique persistait à demander, ou plus précisément à suggérer, des agrandissements territoriaux au détriment des Pays-Bas, Etat qui avait réussi à rester neutre pendant le conflit mondial. Cette attitude, ces historiens l’ont généralement attribuée au manque d’expérience diplomatique de la part du ministre belge des Affaires étrangères, le politicien libéral Paul Hymans. Pour ma part, je voudrais reconstruire le chemin vers Versailles à partir des expériences non des politiciens mais des diplomates belges, leur rôle dans la formulation de la politique étrangère belge de la période étant toujours sous-estimé.
Media History, 2020
This essay investigates how before, during, and after the First World War, diplomats were depicte... more This essay investigates how before, during, and after the First World War, diplomats were depicted
in newspapers, and how they perceived and reacted to these representations. Focusing on the case
of Belgium, it looks, on the one hand, at the occurrence and/or co-existence of certain frames used
by journalists to stereotype diplomats, and evaluates how changes in Belgian foreign policy and
European politics altered framing strategies throughout this period. On the other hand, it sheds
light on how diplomats coped with the penetration of the mass media into their professional
space, which forced them to reckon with changing media logics in this age of accelerating
democratization.
Journal of Belgian History, 2018
This essay seeks to frame some of the recent developments in what has come to be labeled as ‘new ... more This essay seeks to frame some of the recent developments in what has come to be labeled as ‘new diplomatic history.' In the last two decades there has been a remarkable increase in historical attention for the elite worlds inhabited by diplomats and their various associates and antagonists, as well as a noticeable shift away from the traditional preoccupation with ‘the’ state, in the sense of a monolithic institution. Here, we attempt to distinguish some of the achievements and challenges of this scholarship. Our focus is the long 19th century, which has received less metahistorical attention than the literature on early modern and 20th-century diplomacy. We suggest that late modern diplomatic historians would do well to reckon with the tangled relations of their protagonists with early modern forms of diplomacy, while also taking full account of the changing nature of private-public relations in the diplomatic realm in a period of capitalist globalization. While our historiographical focus lies deliberately beyond Belgium, we selectively engage with Belgian diplomatic history as well; the perspective of a small or middling Western power, depending on the parameters one employs, can offer fruitful and unexpected venues for doing comparative international history.
This article investigates the attitude of Belgian diplomats in the debate about the creation of a... more This article investigates the attitude of Belgian diplomats in the debate about the creation of a stronger army in the decades before the First World War. Closely reading the writings of three members of the diplomatic corps and comparing their discourse with the words of their colleagues, it argues that the current historiographical narrative on the diplomats’ stance towards militarization is in need of revision. The Belgian diplomatic world was no monolithic block of officials whose strict interpretation of neutrality led them to oppose any reinforcement of the military until the final years before the outbreak of war. On the contrary, at least from the mid-1890s onwards, several diplomats jettisoned the reticent attitude which their professional quality required of them and took an active part in the propaganda for personal conscription. Their ideas about the purposes of militarizing the nation were conditioned by the prime importance they attached to the realization of Belgian economic and territorial expansion. They supported their argument for the strengthening of the army by appealing to a concept of patriotism that connected the military question to the need for a larger Belgian empire. This way of understanding patriotism also harbored an elitist concern for proper guidance of the masses. Whereas changes in political culture after the 1893 franchise extension had promoted in members of the upper classes a certain distaste for domestic politics, the diplomats among them had found in King Leopold II’s imperialism a motivation to deal with the politicization of the populace. In their view, the army would not only remove the social threat emanating from the lower classes by instilling discipline in their most virile members, it would also nourish their love for Belgium and, much like the colony had done for diplomats, give them pride as the defenders of a strong empire.
This article investigates Peter Paul Rubens's diplomatic mission to the court of Charles I of Eng... more This article investigates Peter Paul Rubens's diplomatic mission to the court of Charles I of England by order of Philip IV of Spain. Bringing together arguments from diplomatic history, anthropology and art theory, it revises the traditional view of Rubens as a heroic figure who brought peace to England and Spain, and honour to himself. Rubens's mission to London should be considered instead as a gift sent by Philip IV to Charles I. The diplomatic culture of the early seventeenth century, which underscored the importance of painting as a means of communication and in which reciprocity was regarded as a fundamental mechanism, profoundly influenced the favourable outcomes of both Rubens's and the Spanish court's diplomatic strategies. It was not just Rubens's personality and genius that brought about political change. Rather, it was the symbolic action of the gift and its subsequent materialization in a painting that Rubens donated to Charles I.
Book Reviews by Michael Auwers
Contemporanea, 2023
De Koude Oorlog is terug van nooit helemaal weggeweest. Dat is althans een van de indrukken die d... more De Koude Oorlog is terug van nooit helemaal weggeweest. Dat is althans een van de indrukken die deze 'biografie van 1947', gepubliceerd driekwart eeuw na het begin van dat conflict in precies dat jaar, op de lezer nalaat. Tussen de leeftijden van de auteurs, de sociale wetenschapper Luk Van Langenhove en de historicus Yannis Skalli-Housseini, zit een tijdsverschil bijna zo groot als de initiële Koude Oorlog tussen de Verenigde Staten en de Sovjet-Unie duurde. De auteurs zetten dit boek dan ook met reden in de markt als een intergenerationeel en interdisciplinair werk.
Diplomatica, 2024
Consuls rank among the favoured persons of interest among scholars working in new diplomatic hist... more Consuls rank among the favoured persons of interest among scholars working in new diplomatic history. Previously often overlooked as mediators in international political and economic processes to the benefit of higher ranking diplomats and political leaders, in recent decades historians and political scientists have come to realize that consular lives provide us with unique perspectives from the grassroots level of interstate relations. Research has so far focused primarily on the institutional history of their profession.
BMGN, 2023
In een zestal lijvige hoofdstukken schetst Aldert Jan van Galen Last nauwgezet de geschiedenis va... more In een zestal lijvige hoofdstukken schetst Aldert Jan van Galen Last
nauwgezet de geschiedenis van de ‘buitenlandse dienst’ vanaf de vroegmoderne Republiek totdat die de Buitenlandse Dienst werd zoals veel Nederlanders die vandaag kennen. De meeste aandacht gaat daarbij uit naar de lange negentiende eeuw. Met behulp van drie criteria (werving, selectie, opleiding) evalueert de auteur voor drie groepen (diplomaten, consuls, tolken) veranderingen op het vlak van drie processen (bureaucratisering, professionalisering, democratisering).
Traditional historiography on Belgian diplomacy during the First World War places undue emphasis ... more Traditional historiography on Belgian diplomacy during the First World War places undue emphasis on the share of politicians and of the monarchy in the making of foreign policy. In this way, they seriously underestimate the impact of the country’s diplomats. In the decades before the First World War, politicians had generally shown little interest in the Foreign Ministry, as foreign policy making remained the realm of the king and of some of the country’s senior diplomats. During the war, as I will discuss in this paper, an upcoming and impatient generation of junior diplomats who had been schooled in the colonial ventures of the late King Leopold II, ousted their senior colleagues from the Foreign Ministry, managed to side-line King Albert I, and took over the reins of Belgian foreign policy.
63 views
Studies in Belgian History, 2022
The Failed Coup of Belgian Diplomacy unsettles traditional ideas about Belgian foreign policy dur... more The Failed Coup of Belgian Diplomacy unsettles traditional ideas about Belgian foreign policy during the First World War. According to the widely accepted narrative, inexperienced politicians leading the Belgian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference made a strategic error in focusing on territorial aggrandizement at the expense of the neutral Nether lands when the political reality and international political culture should have encouraged them to avoid such overreach. However, this narrative places far too much emphasis on politicians in the making of foreign policy. More importantly still, it significantly underestimates the impact of Belgian diplomats. Examining clashes between diplomats over foreign policy objectives, this book offers a vital corrective to these ideas. It argues that an upcoming and impatient generation of junior diplomats, schooled in the colonial ventures of the late King Leopold II, ousted their senior colleagues from the Foreign Ministry, side-lined King Albert I, and took over the reins of Belgian diplomacy. More broadly, The Failed Coup of Belgian Diplomacy challenges established accounts of the First World War as decisive in the political takeover of Europe's diplomatic machinery. In most belligerent countries, diplomats certainly faced accusations of incompetence, with many being removed from the centre of European politics during the war's early stages and later failing to reclaim their influence at the peace conference. In Belgium, however, junior diplomats easily managed to steer politicians away from neutrality towards an annexationist agenda. Belgian failure at Versailles was largely caused by the absence of consensus on foreign policy aims within the diplomatic corps.
Journal of Belgian History, 2022
On the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Cold War, this article a... more On the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Cold War, this article assesses how historians have approached the Belgian dimensions of this conflict. It starts from the observation that historical research on this subject only really began a quarter of a century ago. Initially, studies on Belgian foreign policy and its traditional protagonists predominated. Soon, however, more and more historians realized that they could only grasp the impact of the Cold War on Belgian society through an approach that also included the cultural, economic and technological mobilizations of the conflict. The article concludes with a proposed roadmap for future research on Belgian aspects of the Cold War. This roadmap starts from the prism of anticommunism, which certainly does not cover all the aspects of the conflict, but brings together some of its most important political, economic and cultural dimensions.
La Belgique et les traités de paix, de Versailles à Sèvres (1919-1920) / Dumoulin, Michel et Catherine Lanneau, 2021
En étudiant la vaste historiographie anglophone sur la diplomatie belge avant et durant la confér... more En étudiant la vaste historiographie anglophone sur la diplomatie belge avant et durant la conférence de Versailles, il n’est pas difficile de remarquer la stupéfaction de ces historiens surtout américains. Stupéfaction, notamment, du comportement de ‘little Belgium’, de la petite Belgique. Ces historiens étaient intrigués par le fait que ce ‘small state’, ce petit état, qui avant la guerre semblait avoir adopté – sur la scène européenne, bien entendu – une politique de neutralité très stricte, adoptait par contre à Versailles une attitude assez agressive et sous certains égards, même irrationnelle. Ce qui les frappa le plus, c’est que la petite Belgique persistait à demander, ou plus précisément à suggérer, des agrandissements territoriaux au détriment des Pays-Bas, Etat qui avait réussi à rester neutre pendant le conflit mondial. Cette attitude, ces historiens l’ont généralement attribuée au manque d’expérience diplomatique de la part du ministre belge des Affaires étrangères, le politicien libéral Paul Hymans. Pour ma part, je voudrais reconstruire le chemin vers Versailles à partir des expériences non des politiciens mais des diplomates belges, leur rôle dans la formulation de la politique étrangère belge de la période étant toujours sous-estimé.
Media History, 2020
This essay investigates how before, during, and after the First World War, diplomats were depicte... more This essay investigates how before, during, and after the First World War, diplomats were depicted
in newspapers, and how they perceived and reacted to these representations. Focusing on the case
of Belgium, it looks, on the one hand, at the occurrence and/or co-existence of certain frames used
by journalists to stereotype diplomats, and evaluates how changes in Belgian foreign policy and
European politics altered framing strategies throughout this period. On the other hand, it sheds
light on how diplomats coped with the penetration of the mass media into their professional
space, which forced them to reckon with changing media logics in this age of accelerating
democratization.
Journal of Belgian History, 2018
This essay seeks to frame some of the recent developments in what has come to be labeled as ‘new ... more This essay seeks to frame some of the recent developments in what has come to be labeled as ‘new diplomatic history.' In the last two decades there has been a remarkable increase in historical attention for the elite worlds inhabited by diplomats and their various associates and antagonists, as well as a noticeable shift away from the traditional preoccupation with ‘the’ state, in the sense of a monolithic institution. Here, we attempt to distinguish some of the achievements and challenges of this scholarship. Our focus is the long 19th century, which has received less metahistorical attention than the literature on early modern and 20th-century diplomacy. We suggest that late modern diplomatic historians would do well to reckon with the tangled relations of their protagonists with early modern forms of diplomacy, while also taking full account of the changing nature of private-public relations in the diplomatic realm in a period of capitalist globalization. While our historiographical focus lies deliberately beyond Belgium, we selectively engage with Belgian diplomatic history as well; the perspective of a small or middling Western power, depending on the parameters one employs, can offer fruitful and unexpected venues for doing comparative international history.
This article investigates the attitude of Belgian diplomats in the debate about the creation of a... more This article investigates the attitude of Belgian diplomats in the debate about the creation of a stronger army in the decades before the First World War. Closely reading the writings of three members of the diplomatic corps and comparing their discourse with the words of their colleagues, it argues that the current historiographical narrative on the diplomats’ stance towards militarization is in need of revision. The Belgian diplomatic world was no monolithic block of officials whose strict interpretation of neutrality led them to oppose any reinforcement of the military until the final years before the outbreak of war. On the contrary, at least from the mid-1890s onwards, several diplomats jettisoned the reticent attitude which their professional quality required of them and took an active part in the propaganda for personal conscription. Their ideas about the purposes of militarizing the nation were conditioned by the prime importance they attached to the realization of Belgian economic and territorial expansion. They supported their argument for the strengthening of the army by appealing to a concept of patriotism that connected the military question to the need for a larger Belgian empire. This way of understanding patriotism also harbored an elitist concern for proper guidance of the masses. Whereas changes in political culture after the 1893 franchise extension had promoted in members of the upper classes a certain distaste for domestic politics, the diplomats among them had found in King Leopold II’s imperialism a motivation to deal with the politicization of the populace. In their view, the army would not only remove the social threat emanating from the lower classes by instilling discipline in their most virile members, it would also nourish their love for Belgium and, much like the colony had done for diplomats, give them pride as the defenders of a strong empire.
This article investigates Peter Paul Rubens's diplomatic mission to the court of Charles I of Eng... more This article investigates Peter Paul Rubens's diplomatic mission to the court of Charles I of England by order of Philip IV of Spain. Bringing together arguments from diplomatic history, anthropology and art theory, it revises the traditional view of Rubens as a heroic figure who brought peace to England and Spain, and honour to himself. Rubens's mission to London should be considered instead as a gift sent by Philip IV to Charles I. The diplomatic culture of the early seventeenth century, which underscored the importance of painting as a means of communication and in which reciprocity was regarded as a fundamental mechanism, profoundly influenced the favourable outcomes of both Rubens's and the Spanish court's diplomatic strategies. It was not just Rubens's personality and genius that brought about political change. Rather, it was the symbolic action of the gift and its subsequent materialization in a painting that Rubens donated to Charles I.
Contemporanea, 2023
De Koude Oorlog is terug van nooit helemaal weggeweest. Dat is althans een van de indrukken die d... more De Koude Oorlog is terug van nooit helemaal weggeweest. Dat is althans een van de indrukken die deze 'biografie van 1947', gepubliceerd driekwart eeuw na het begin van dat conflict in precies dat jaar, op de lezer nalaat. Tussen de leeftijden van de auteurs, de sociale wetenschapper Luk Van Langenhove en de historicus Yannis Skalli-Housseini, zit een tijdsverschil bijna zo groot als de initiële Koude Oorlog tussen de Verenigde Staten en de Sovjet-Unie duurde. De auteurs zetten dit boek dan ook met reden in de markt als een intergenerationeel en interdisciplinair werk.
Diplomatica, 2024
Consuls rank among the favoured persons of interest among scholars working in new diplomatic hist... more Consuls rank among the favoured persons of interest among scholars working in new diplomatic history. Previously often overlooked as mediators in international political and economic processes to the benefit of higher ranking diplomats and political leaders, in recent decades historians and political scientists have come to realize that consular lives provide us with unique perspectives from the grassroots level of interstate relations. Research has so far focused primarily on the institutional history of their profession.
BMGN, 2023
In een zestal lijvige hoofdstukken schetst Aldert Jan van Galen Last nauwgezet de geschiedenis va... more In een zestal lijvige hoofdstukken schetst Aldert Jan van Galen Last
nauwgezet de geschiedenis van de ‘buitenlandse dienst’ vanaf de vroegmoderne Republiek totdat die de Buitenlandse Dienst werd zoals veel Nederlanders die vandaag kennen. De meeste aandacht gaat daarbij uit naar de lange negentiende eeuw. Met behulp van drie criteria (werving, selectie, opleiding) evalueert de auteur voor drie groepen (diplomaten, consuls, tolken) veranderingen op het vlak van drie processen (bureaucratisering, professionalisering, democratisering).
![Research paper thumbnail of Estelle Hoorickx, La Belgique, l’OTAN et la guerre froide. Le témoignage d’André De Staercke, Belgisch tijdschrift voor nieuwste geschiedenis / Jan Dhondt Stichting; CEGESOMA [Brussel] - ISSN 0035-0869 - 52:4 (2022), p. 175-178](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/97240663/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Journal of Belgian History, 2022
With the exception of Rik Coolsaet's more structuralist analysis of the various strands of Belgia... more With the exception of Rik Coolsaet's more structuralist analysis of the various strands of Belgian foreign policy, the diplomatic history of Belgium during the Cold War has long been a story of great politicians whose talent allowed the small country to punch above its weight in the world of post-war multilateralism.
Contemporanea, 2022
Paul Ponsaers geldt in België als een van de grootste specialisten van de gewelddadige jaren 1980... more Paul Ponsaers geldt in België als een van de grootste specialisten van de gewelddadige jaren 1980. Dat bewees hij recent nog met zijn boek Loden jaren (2018), waarin hij het onderzoek naar de Bende van Nijvel treffend wist te kaderen in zijn sociale en politieke context. Terrorisme in België herneemt een deel van dat onderzoek maar zoomt tegelijk wat meer uit om het gehele spectrum van politiek geweld in het laatste decennium van de Koude Oorlog te belichten.
Zie verder https://www.contemporanea.be/nl/article/20222recensieauwersoverponsaers
Contemporanea 2022, 2022
De geschiedenis van Polen tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog vormt een aaneenschakeling van welbekend... more De geschiedenis van Polen tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog vormt een aaneenschakeling van welbekende en vooral tragische gebeurtenissen. Daarbij springen onder meer de opeenvolgende invasies van de nazi’s en de sovjets in het oog, evenals het Bloedbad van Katyn door die laatsten en de massa-executies door de eersten tijdens de Opstand van Warschau. Ook het verhaal van de toenemende machteloosheid van de Poolse regering die snel na de dubbele invasie werd heropgericht, via Frankrijk in Engeland terechtkwam, maar vanwege de communistische bezetting van Polen na de Tweede Wereldoorlog niet naar dat land zou kunnen terugkeren, is uitvoerig gedocumenteerd. We weten echter veel minder over de beleidsvorming en houding van de Belgische diplomatieke elite tegenover de zogenaamde Poolse kwestie. Daarin heeft Jozef Łaptos, met de hulp van een aantal Belgische en Poolse collega’s, nu verandering gebracht met een bijzonder verzorgde uitgave van 275 voornamelijk Belgische diplomatieke rapporten uit de periode september 1939 – juli 1945.
Zie ook: https://www.contemporanea.be/nl/article/20222recensieauwersoverlaptos
Journal of Belgian History, 2021
Contemporanea, 2020
Sinds de Black Lives Matter-beweging in het voorjaar van 2020 de oceaan overwaaide, staat de gesc... more Sinds de Black Lives Matter-beweging in het voorjaar van 2020 de oceaan overwaaide, staat de geschiedenis van het Belgische imperialisme in Congo relatief hoog op de politieke agenda. Niettegenstaande de immer aanhoudende stroom van historisch-wetenschappelijke publicaties over het onvoorstelbare geweld dat Congolezen tussen de jaren 1880 (en voordien) en 1960 (en nadien) teisterde, werd afgelopen zomer een bijzondere Kamercommissie samengesteld "om voor eens en voor altijd klaarheid te scheppen over de overheersing door Leopold II en het Belgische koloniale apparaat." (De Standaard, 18 en 19 juli 2020) Een van de experten die de Kamerleden zullen adviseren, is Mathieu Zana Etambala. Met zijn belangwekkende Congo 1876-1914. Veroverd, Bezet, Gekoloniseerd presenteert hij alvast mooie adelbrieven.
Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis, 2016
European History Quarterly, 2014
). La diplomatie belge face aux Juifs et aux antisémites, Brussel, André Versailles éditeur, 2012... more ). La diplomatie belge face aux Juifs et aux antisémites, Brussel, André Versailles éditeur, 2012. Dit boek vult een belangrijke hiaat in de geschiedschrijving over de Belgische diplomatie. Bertrand Herremans schotelt de lezer een kleine tweehonderd bladzijden lang interpretaties van citaten voor als antwoord op de vraag hoe Belgische diplomaten tijdens het Interbellum het Jodenvraagstuk benaderden. Volgens de schrijver van het voorwoord, Herremans' opdrachtgever Joël Kotek, kan dat antwoord geformuleerd worden met behulp van zinsneden
Ondertussen is het ruim tien jaar geleden dat de cultural turn de diplomatieke geschiedschrijving... more Ondertussen is het ruim tien jaar geleden dat de cultural turn de diplomatieke geschiedschrijving nieuw leven inblies. Door de hernieuwde aandacht voor het individu als actief vormgever van de geschiedenis, kwamen de persoon van de diplomaat, zijn mentale leefwereld en zijn gedragingen als vertegenwoordiger van vorst en vaderland opnieuw centraal te staan. Dit resulteerde in tal van opmerkelijke publicaties die de diplomatie vanuit een politiek-culturele bril bestuderen. Het is erg verleidelijk om Les diplomates belges van Raoul Delcorde, huidig Belgisch ambassadeur in Polen, tot onderdeel van deze nouvelle vague te maken en het bijgevolg op zijn historisch-wetenschappelijke merites te beoordelen. Niet dat het boek er in dat licht slecht zou uitkomen: Delcorde heeft zich voldoende gedocumenteerd met zowel archivalisch materiaal als secundaire literatuur en bekijkt de Belgische diplomaten vanuit een veelheid aan perspectieven.
At Diplomacy situated: settings, personas, practices (5th Conference of the New Diplomatic Histor... more At Diplomacy situated: settings, personas, practices (5th Conference of the New Diplomatic History Network, 25th-27th May, 2023, Turku, Finland)
At the workshop 'Politics in Public: The mediatization of political personae 1880s-1930s', Leuven... more At the workshop 'Politics in Public: The mediatization of political personae 1880s-1930s', Leuven, 11-13 October 2018
At 'Bridging Divides', the Third Conference of the New Diplomatic History Network, RIAS Middelbur... more At 'Bridging Divides', the Third Conference of the New Diplomatic History Network, RIAS Middelburg, 24-26 October 2018
At the International Conference Conflict Management in Modern Diplomacy (1500-1914), University o... more At the International Conference Conflict Management in Modern Diplomacy (1500-1914), University of Vienna, 8-10 February 2018
At the International Conference «Global War, Global Connections, Global Moments», University of Z... more At the International Conference «Global War, Global Connections, Global Moments», University of Zürich, 31 January - 2 February 2018
Watch on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=476kXRn1zOo
At the workshop “Between National Rivalry and Inter-Imperial Cooperation: European Encounters in ... more At the workshop “Between National Rivalry and Inter-Imperial Cooperation: European Encounters in the World, 1870 – 1919”, Basel, 6-7 October 2017
At the Colloque international "Je ne voudrais point un négociateur de métier...". L'identité du d... more At the Colloque international "Je ne voudrais point un négociateur de métier...". L'identité du diplomate: métier ou noble loisir? (Moyen Âge tardif - XIXe siècle), Paris, 14-17 June 2017
At the 5th Annual Meeting “Europe and the World”: Europe and the Cold War – Changes and Disruptio... more At the 5th Annual Meeting “Europe and the World”: Europe and the Cold War – Changes and Disruptions, University of Coimbra, 5 April 2017
Podcast over Rubens op radio Klara, afl. 8, 2018
Rubens was hofschilder van de aartshertogen Albrecht en Isabella. Toen aartshertogin Isabella mer... more Rubens was hofschilder van de aartshertogen Albrecht en Isabella. Toen aartshertogin Isabella merkte dat Rubens via zijn netwerk aan politiek interessante informatie kon geraken, besloot ze samen met haar neef Filips IV, koning van Spanje om Rubens een extra functie te geven. Rubens werd benoemd tot secretaris van de Geheime Raad van Brussel. Historicus Michaël Auwers vertelt onder andere over het schilderij 'Allegorie van de vrede', bestemd voor de kunstminnende Karel I van Engeland.
La Belgique et les traités de paix, de Versailles à Sèvres (1919-1920), 2019
En étudiant la vaste historiographie anglophone sur la diplomatie belge avant et durant la confér... more En étudiant la vaste historiographie anglophone sur la diplomatie belge avant et durant la conférence de Versailles, il n’est pas difficile de remarquer la stupéfaction de ces historiens surtout américains. Stupéfaction, notamment, du comportement de ‘little Belgium’, de la petite Belgique. Ces historiens étaient intrigués par le fait que ce ‘small state’, ce petit état, qui avant la guerre semblait avoir adopté – sur la scène européenne, bien entendu – une politique de neutralité très stricte, adoptait par contre à Versailles une attitude assez agressive et sous certains égards, même irrationnelle. Ce qui les frappa le plus, c’est que la petite Belgique persistait à demander, ou plus précisément à suggérer, des agrandissements territoriaux au détriment des Pays-Bas, Etat qui avait réussi à rester neutre pendant le conflit mondial. Cette attitude, ces historiens l’ont généralement attribuée au manque d’expérience diplomatique de la part du ministre belge des Affaires étrangères, le politicien libéral Paul Hymans. Pour ma part, je voudrais reconstruire le chemin vers Versailles à partir des expériences non des politiciens mais des diplomates belges, leur rôle dans la formulation de la politique étrangère belge de la période étant toujours sous-estimé.
On September 11-13, 2024, KU Leuven will host an international conference on the interrelated the... more On September 11-13, 2024, KU Leuven will host an international conference on the interrelated themes of imperialism and Belgian expansionism. We welcome paper proposals that explore the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in writing new global histories of imperialism between 1830, when Belgium was founded, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Focusing on different actors, institutions, organizations, learned societies, and transnational associations involved in Belgian overseas expansion is an invitation to reflect on definitions of imperialism, colonization and empire, to apply this to the case of Belgian global expansion, and to transcend the conventional focus on the ‘Great Powers.’
Keynote speakers:
Manu Karuka (Barnard College, New York)
Daniel Laqua (Northumbria University, Newcastle)
Deadline submission abstracts:
December 30, 2023.