Recent Developments in the Teaching of Peace History and Related Areas in North America

Introduction Interest by historians in peace, war and related studies as a teaching field has grown quietly but dramatically within the last few years. Clearly, the growth of this interest is traceable to the general reexamination of international life in the post-1945 period, particularly with reference to the role of the United States. In newly designed courses, undergraduate and graduate, as well as in research work, graduate and post-doctoral, this trend is evident. Subjects once glossed over lightly in teaching or relegated to secondary scholarly researches now assume positions of central significance. An exact definition of work in this field of history is neither a feasible nor necessarily a desirable task, since the area is as flexible and wide ranging as the interests of those who labor in it. Broadly speaking, peace history is best understood as a point of view, a perspective in which frequently unorthodox and non-traditional questions shape the direction of research and teaching. For one peace historian of medieval Europe, the Crusades are examined as a study of conflict and assimilation between enemy cultures; for another, the ideological premises of Christian pacifist sects are studied in an effort to unravel the social sources of intellectual history. A diplomatic historian of war and peace may be interested in why peace was maintained in one situation and not in another similar situation. A sampling of recent approaches to peace and war studies shows further: analyses of the attitudes of diplomats towards the use of war, the goals of international peace conferences, the influence of public attitudes on the decision to make war or peace, the relations between civilian and military institutions and personnel, the relationships among war, peace and social change, and studies of social, economic and political conditions wherein peace obtained

Adversary · Diplomatic history · Ideology · International relations · Peace and conflict studies · Peace economics · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · World War II · Law · Political Conflict and Governance · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

• Peace History

  Open Access•Peter Van Den Dungen, Lawrence S Wittner•Journal of Peace Research•2003

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