The Changing Face of Diplomatic History: A Literature Review.

Abstract

SHORTLY BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN 2004, departing Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed a luncheon meeting hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Powell described to his Boston audience the readjustments that his cabinet post had imposed on him. "When I came into the job, it was an entirely different world than the world I left," he revealed. It was a world "with the Soviet Union gone and many of these new nations that used to be behind the Iron Curtain now anxious to develop a friendship with us."' Powell went on to discuss how he was tested in the Middle East and Asia, and the universal dilemmas posed by poverty and AIDS. It was clear that simple bilateral diplomacy could no longer encompass the enormity of the world's challenges, and that foreign policy would adjust to reflect these changed circumstances. Historical scholarship has recognized the vast variety and subtlety of world affairs that preoccupied Powell. We currently enjoy something of a renaissance in the study of foreign relations. As a sub-field of history, diplomatic history will always be concerned in great measure with power relations among states, and particularly with bilateral relations, but in the last few decades it has discovered new ways to reveal and interpret these. Several factors account for the growing interest in the area, often from unlikely contributors, and for the journey of diplomatic history from the