TRANSNATIONAL HISTORY AND THE RE-ORIENTATION OF ‘EMPIRE’ AS SPACES OF RUPTURES

In the past decade, the historical academic discipline has been marked by what has been described as the transnational turn. This is in which historians are now looking at transnational forces such as trends, movements, ideas and individuals that transcend the self-contained boundaries of the nation-state in order to enhance our understanding of the past. Furthermore, this direction reflects an awareness of an increasingly globalised and interconnected world since the 1990s, which would reflect back upon how one views the past. At the same time, this historiographical direction has also attracted considerable debates in terms of its viability as a mode for historical inquiry, for providing analytical angles for contested historical issues and for giving agency to previously peripheral historical protagonists beyond the traditional framework of the nation-state that has marked historical scholarship in the twentieth century. Unlike other more established sub-fields of the historical discipline, transnational history still offers new opportunities and challenges in opening up spaces of inquiry, including re-orientating ones that may have been no longer in fashion with researchers. A particular example is the re-orientation of ‘Empire’ as a historical space of ruptures. Whilst empires went into decline after the end of the Second World War and the emergence of post-colonial nation states in the non-Western world, within this post-colonial reality, it is possible for the significance of ‘Empire’ to be re-evaluated through the prism of transnational history. In particular, the dissemination and circulation of ideas and projects within imperial spaces, that contributed to the intellectual and cultural development of new set of overlapping and at times, contested identities which resulted in the collapse of empires and the forces that drove these changes in the last two centuries. Thus, through examining existing scholarship and relevant case studies where possible, the purpose of this paper is to investigate ways via transnational history as a research perspective, ‘Empire’ can be re-orientated as sites of historical ruptures that could contribute to our understanding of the formation of a post-colonial reality by the second half of the twentieth century. Whilst the emphasis is on weighing the merits of transnational history on re-defining the spatiality of ‘Empire’, there will also be consideration of its limitations and the problems associated with applying such a perspective to deliver a balanced assessment. Furthermore, demonstrate how transnational history, as one of the more nascent branches of historical field, can be considered as a promising window into potential new fields of research for the foreseeable future.

In order to get into the question of the viability of transnational history as a promising research perspective, particularly regarding establishing ‘Empire’ as a space of ruptures, it is important to establish a definition of what constitutes a ‘transnational history.’ There are many contested variations, however, what can be agreed upon, as argued by Pierre-Yves Saunier is that ‘transnational history’ could be seen as the historicisation of contacts, exchanges between constructed communities, polities and societies. Secondly, the transnational perspective recognises external contributions to the design, discussion and formation of domestic features within the above-mentioned social units and vice versa.[1] Thus, a multi-way contribution to ruptures into the domestic and the foreign. What distinguishes between the transnational history and other forms of historical modes of analysis is that the former focuses on flows of circulation and connections between different national societies, essentially, retaining the nation state as a territorial unit of analysis. In this case, one must trace the flows of exchanges of the material and non-materials between these self-contained entities, essentially considering how the development of one affected the development of the other. As a newer branch of the historical discipline, the conceptualisation of the transnational perspective remains contested and often overlapped with others. For example, it is easy to align transnational history with that of elite-centric diplomatic or international history, which has always had a transnational dimension to it in terms of examining transnational networks of diplomats, international financiers.[2] However, within the last decade and the rise of questions surrounding globalisation, there has been a new wave of new historical discipline focusing on transnational and global forces such as those of the social, economic and cultural which breaches national boundaries and the emergence of multilateral bodies such as the European Union in the possibility of transnational consciousness, which has contributed to increased scholarly attention to these themes.[3] Thus, the prevalence of the nation-state as a unit of analysis diminishes. The emergence of this new wave also coincided with the end of the Cold War and the decline of the role of ideologies as a determinant in human behaviours and to be replaced with social and cultural studies. In fact, one could also trace the emergence of transnational history to the 1970s, attributing to the increase in the number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and international bodies and increased multilateral dialogues between states on a number of global issues, such as the environment and human rights, thus resulting in a new international system that is no longer defined by the nation-states, as observed by scholars such as Akira Iriye.[4] Thus, it is observable there are similarities between global and transnational history, as both deal with factors and elements that overcome artificially constructed national boundaries and contribute to historical ruptures. At the same time, one fundamental difference is global history tends to deal with changes on a planetary scale as a whole , which may diminish the importance of smaller constructed societal units and historical actors.[5] At the same time, there is also a greater risk with global history of falling into the trap of constructing grand meta narratives.

One particular opportunity that this new wave of scholarship offers is a revaluation of historical spaces of ruptures, such as that of ‘Empire’. This imperative also partly originated from the emergence of post-colonial studies and ‘subaltern studies’, in which scholars such as Dipesh Chakrabaty and Edward Said sought to “provincialize” Europe, no longer putting it at the centre of dissemination of ideas and ruptures and look towards a new imperial history, with increased agency to previously ignored historical actors in the colonised world.[6] Therefore, the writing of such a history allows for greater understanding of how historical actors operate within an imperial space and the connections and exchanges that they made contributed to fundamental changes to their localities and further afield. Furthermore, by re-orientating ‘Empire’ a space of ruptures, it will also allow for greater understanding of the problems associated with the postcolonial era and the legacies of ‘Empires’ in general, which were not necessarily facilitated by “imperial action” but more to do with “imperial presence”.[7]The focus of this paper will be to examine the ways in which transnational history is utilised in re-orientating ‘Empire’ as a space of historical ruptures. Firstly, one must define how ‘Empire’ can be a space of historical ruptures. In Christopher Goscha’s work on the history of the political entity that we now know as Vietnam, which itself historically was part of several imperial project, both in Antiquity with the Han Empire and in the nineteenth century with the French equivalent, ‘Empires’ are considered as ‘motors for change’, rather than just economic and ideological enterprises. This notion means ‘Empires’ connect people and transport ideas, material cultures and languages across an imperial space.[8] Therefore, contributing to intellectual and cultural spaces, not only from an imperial ‘centre’ towards colonial ‘peripheries’ but also result in transformation of the ‘centre’. Furthermore, there is also a comparison between the Han Imperial project in Jiaozhi, modern-day northern Vietnam, and their Roman equivalent in what is now modern-day Europe in Antiquity, in which the latter also serves as a vehicle to spread new cultural norms and institutions and received by indigenous elites of the conquered territories.[9] Here we can see how the transnational perspective is used to elaborate the ways ’Empire’ as a space can facilitate historical ruptures within a pre-national society, in which it recognises foreign contributions to the formation of domestic features within self-contained units. However, there is a risk here of applying a modern transnational language of imperialism to describe events and processes in pre-modern political entities. It is important to distinguish between the land- based, culturally assimilative empires of old and the Eurocentric model of a metropolitan state with a wide periphery of significant geographical, subsequently cultural and racial, distance that defined the modern age.[10] Hence, the two are defined by their relationships between the ruler and the ruled. Thus, the role of ‘Empire’ as a space of ruptures becomes more prominent, when discussing nineteenth and twentieth century imperialism and how processes and contacts actually resulted in, often unintentionally, the imagination and the formation of a new set of identities and eventually led to the collapse of those ‘imperial spaces’ by the end of the Second World War and the formation of independent nation-states in the non-Western world.

By establishing ‘Empire’ as a vehicle for changes, based on existing and new evidence, one could see connections and exchanges that may not have previously been considered before. One way ‘Empire’ provides space for historical ruptures is the circulation of ideas and materials and the role of historical intermediaries in facilitating these changes. Historical intermediaries may include travellers, merchants, sailors, whose movements may undermine artificially constructed national boundaries and made possible by the imperial project. Coming back to Goscha’s work on Vietnamese history, the author traces the increased Chinese migration to Cochinchina, modern-day southern Vietnam, as a result of the French colonial economic expansion at the start of the twentieth century. Many of these migrants happened to be avid readers of writings by Chinese reformist thinkers such as Liang Qichao and this led to the increased availability of Chinese language books and pamphlets in Vietnam, which could be read fluently in writing by members of the Vietnamese Confucian-trained elites. The author traces the circulation of these texts from Chinese skippers to indigenous couriers, who delivered these writings to their superiors.[11] The ideas espoused in these texts would have profound impact upon its readers and subsequently, events in colonial Vietnam. Therefore, it can be seen that an imperial space in the French context provided an avenue for movement of texts and their intellectual content facilitated by transnational intermediaries, human in the form of Chinese skippers and non-human in the form of Classical Chinese. Therefore, transnational history is applied in understanding circulation and movements, facilitated by the transportation technology du jour that result in intellectual ruptures within an imperial space. With regards to Goscha’s work, whilst it may be a writing of a national history of Vietnam, as argued by Sven Beckert, transnational history does not restrict itself to any particular methodological approach, here, a national history can be transnational in terms of how its developments or conceptualisation was influenced by transnational connections.[12]

Besides the circulation and movements of ideas via human and non-human intermediaries, one must take into consideration the transmutation and eventual importation of concepts and ideas via translations in different languages as they travel within imperial spaces. This is where transnational history can be used as a way of seeing to trace the reproduction and evolution of concepts and ideas as they go through different layers of receptions and ultimately result in intellectual ruptures. The research into the advent of imperialism and the promotion and diffusion of Western republican ideas into the Confucian East Asian world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, as shown above, provides cases of how transnational history is employed in furthering understanding of formal and informal empires as spaces of ruptures. Along that line, one could point to the universalisation of certain ideas and concepts in a transnational nineteenth century. An example would be the transmission of the concept ‘society’ from its Western European Enlightenment origin to Meiji Japan, which could be considered part of an informal imperial space considering the latter was subjected to a series of ‘Unfair Treaties’ and how it aimed to be an empire in its own right later on. Here, transnational history can show us how this was not a simple diffusion of concepts from imperial ‘centres’ towards ‘peripheries’, but rather a process where local actors sought to integrate these newly imported ideas into their constructed self-contained polities. In the case of Japan in the late nineteenth century, Christopher L. Hill demonstrates, through a transnational space, how the universalisation of concepts such as ‘civilisation’, ‘right’ and ‘sovereignty’ fermented Japan’s claims that colonisation was legal and beneficial. Furthermore, this was not a proof of the superiority of European civilisation but rather a mediation of the transnational ‘intellectual fields as a result of the circulation of texts and ideas within imperial spaces.[13] Based on the previous case studies, it can be argued that the transnational history perspective can allow for ‘Empire’ to be deterritorialized as a space in which ideas and concepts travel through human and non-human intermediaries, ultimately resulting in universalisation of previously alien concepts and contribute to intellectual and cultural ruptures within constructed self-contained localities.

As part of the ongoing historiographical debate on transnational history, scholars such as Davide Rodogno, Benhard Struck and Jakob Vogel had all argued for the concept of “transnational sphere.” This argument is based on the premise of the emergence of the nation-state came with the rise of transnational spheres, which allows for interactions across national borders and not limited to concrete gatherings such as international congresses and organisations.[14] Whilst this argument may have only applied to the post-1945 international system, arguably, this approach could be applied in understanding ‘Empire’ in terms of also viewing it a ‘transnational sphere’ where there were exchanges and movements happening across borders, that predated the construction of national ones. Furthermore, not limiting to the circulation of ideas and concepts, as mentioned before, ‘Empire’ as a transnational sphere often serves as a venue where people travel to destinations, causing interactions and clashes and ultimately, ruptures which may not have been possible before imperial contacts. Moreover, transnational history takes into account different methods or cultural currencies that enable people to travel via imperial spaces and exchanges are made not necessarily in concrete multinational meetings. This brings us to the example of Joshua B.Guild’s work on the movement of Calypso artists within the transnational sphere of ‘Empire’, whose music may have originated from Trinidad in the West Indies but also contained various transnational music influences. Here, the transnational history perspective is used to trace the movement and circulation of the music of Lord Kitchener and Lord Invader within the imperial spaces of the Carribean, the US, the UK, and the African continent, with the aid of the advancement in recording technologies, whose works critiqued the absurdities of racialism and colonial injustices in a jovial and humorous manner whilst emphasising black diasporic connections and solidarities in age of civil rights and rapid decolonization.[15] This case study also shows the use of transnational history as a way of re-orientating ‘Empire’ as a transnational space of ruptures, in which the movements and circulations by historical actors and their intellectual and cultural contributions, which gained currency during these exchanges, made possible by imperial structures also contributed to its own demise by the mid to late twentieth century. Along this line, the use of Calypso and Trinidadian artists is an example of what Saunier and other historians termed ‘translocality’, as a studied notion of transfers and connections taking place below the elite level, often outside of the ‘West’.[16] This is the case as Calypso is characterised as a non-elite popular genre of music that gains currency as a result of mass circulation in a transnational sphere, especially if we consider the English-speaking Black diaspora as a non-Western space of interactions and receptions, regardless of geography. As the writing of transnational history has previously focused on the operations of concrete multinational bodies and institutions, it is important to take into consideration exchanges made through less conventional means, which include re-constituting spaces of historical ruptures. Furthermore, the inclusion of Trinidad in the West Indies shows how transnational history can emphasise the agency of smaller localities through their indirect or direct association with an imperial space and might be a latecomer to the nation-state, not to mention the means in which these smaller localities contributed to historical ruptures in the metropole, thus re-centering smaller localities as Port of Spain, at least on equal footing with more prominent cultural capitals such as New York or London. Furthermore, as observed by Wendy Kozol, critiques of US and European imperialism and racism have been influential in the development of transnational history as anti-colonial and civil rights movements have led to serious academic reconsiderations of how historians understand patterns and processes such as migrations, state formation and globalisation.[17] It is under these context which made it possible for cultural items such as Calypso to be given a new historical dimension within a transnational imperial sphere.

As the historical discipline often privileges the supposedly “big countries” shown by the intellectual labour division of the discipline, the transnational history angle allows for allegedly less significant entities to play a bigger role in the historical narrative, if one focus on transplantations and patterns beyond the self-contained national boundaries.[18] This is an area where an re-orientation of ‘Empire’ as a space of historical ruptures offers research opportunities in terms of re-assessing importance of previously perceived less significant actors and localities in terms of causing ruptures. Along this line, if one was to re-orientate ‘Empire’ as space of historical ruptures, it would be useful to not see it as a concrete geographical space, but rather to a multitude of possible spaces or territories where historical ruptures may occur, which may not require historical actors to leave their self-contained localities. In one case, ‘Empire’ could be seen as an area where an international language of ‘Empire’ gains currency, not necessarily through concrete imperial processes but also through perceptions and discourses. To again use the case of the Confucian East Asian world at the turn of the twentieth century, in Youn Dae-Jong’s work on the history of the Korean peninsula, during this period, there emerged a discourse within the Korean public sphere of using the case of the French colonisation of Vietnam as a representation of a weak, backward Asian country falling prey to technological superior Western imperial conquest and the perpetual threat that a similar fate awaits Korea, which became a reality with the signing of the Protectorate Treaty between Japan and Korea on November 1905.[19] This case study represents an example of how ‘Empire’ can be seen as a rhetorical space where its vernaculars, particularly that of ‘domination’, ‘superiority’ against ‘backwardness’ gained intellectual currency and ultimately resulted in historical ruptures. through public discourses and transnational perceptions of outside events. Thus, constituting a multitude of spaces, beyond geographical constructs, where historical ruptures can occur. At the same time, through this case study, it is possible to write a transnational history that is still local, if the focus is on perception and reception of local actors toward external phenomenon, made possible by advancements in communication technologies. Thus, open up a multitude of sites of historical inquiry. Furthermore, as argued by Hopkins, alluding to the case of settler communities and indigenous peoples in the so-called ‘white settler societies’ in Oceania and North America, an understanding of the imperial context would open new possibilities for comparative studies of different communities as non-national affiliations and associations have gained currency in recent years in historical scholarship.[20]

So far, through the case studies above, the transnational history perspective offers plenty of research opportunities, especially in terms of re-orientating ‘Empire’ as a space, or a multitude of spaces of historical ruptures. For the remainder of this paper, the focus will be on the limitations of applying a transnational history perspective in general and with regards to spatializing ‘Empire’ as a site of historical ruptures. Moreover, the potential challenges that applying such an approach might pose at both a theoretical and institutional level. There has been criticism of the application of the ‘transnational or ‘global’ turn in historiography within the discipline itself, particularly in terms of analytical point of view for certain historical events. One could point to David Bell’s questioning of using a transnational/global history angle to understand the global impact of the French Revolution, in ideals and practices. In this historiographical critique, Bell identifies one of the ways of placing the French Revolution under a transnational/global perspective is understanding events across metropolitan and non-metropolitan territories as being part of integrated, transnational historical processes.[21] This angle relates directly to the question of the re-orientation of ‘Empire’ as a space of historical ruptures, in this case, of a revolutionary nature. The criticism is mainly directed at the notion of new revolutionary practices being developed in metropolitan France as a response to the events in the colonies, in particular, to the question of slavery. In particular, he disputes (Jeremy D.) Popkin’s argument for the French abolitionist society, the Société des Amis Noirs as the first “ideologically-defined revolutionary club” and thus, a precursor to the radical Jacobins that later came to define the Terror.[22] However, there is no concrete evidence to suggest any causal link between the two groups in order to establish historical rupture based on inward influences from the colonies toward the metropole. Furthermore, Bell also disputes other historians’ emphasis on the circulation of ideas throughout the Atlantic world, in reference to slavery and abolition, that informed the revolutionary preocuppations witht the “rights of man” as “unsubstantiated”.[23] Hence, the transnational history approach, with regards to re-orientating ‘Empire’ as a space of ruptures remain limited in terms of establishing the kind of influences that the peripheries that may have had on the imperial centre, thus contributing to ruptures in the latter. Along this line, Bell’s article shows that while a transnational/global angle is useful in demonstrating circulations, networks and exchanges that transcend the nation-state, but establishing them as primary forces that resulted in changes without substantial evidence on ground pose significant historiographical problems, especially in terms of convincing one of the significance of less connected spaces and actors within imperial spaces. On the contrary, this does not mean transnational history loses any value as an alternate way of viewing processes and events in the eighteenth century Atlantic world.

Along this line, as transnational history promises new research windows into the transformation of ideas and concepts in non-Western settings, thus moving away from the primacy of elite state actors and onto multiple independent actors such individuals, communities and organisations, this also leads to the question of whether we are replacing the perspective of one group of elites with another.[24] Coming back to the case of the distribution of Chinese reformist texts in colonial Vietnam in the early twentieth century, how possible is it to understand the point of view of the indigenous courier who delivers those publications from the ports to his Mandarin master? Especially since this historical actor is amongst many intermediaries involved in the circulation and dissemination of texts, however did not leave any written record of their own in which illiteracy is a contributing factor and thus, no voice in the historical record. Therefore, in terms of methodologies, writing a transnational history of ‘Empire’ as a space of ruptures remained limited as the main challenge for transnational historians of ‘Empire’ would be to go around the dependency on textual sources written by elites, in order to incorporate a variety of historical voices within imperial spaces and territories, especially those could be considered as part of the ‘subaltern’. There is also the issue of gender, as historical perspectives tend to be heavily male dominated, both within the colonisers and the colonised, especially with women of colours, whose voices and actions are more likely to be hidden in the historical record. Overcoming these problems would prove fundamental to creating new narratives surrounding ‘Empire’ as spaces of historical ruptures

At the same time, another challenge is language. When writing a transnational history of ‘Empire’ as a space of ruptures, it is not longer suffice to conduct research in a metropole lingua franca to understand reactions to transnational processes, but also in the languages of the supposedly ‘colonised’ to emphasise greater agency. However, this methodological approach also presents several challenges. They include expanding the number of languages one must be proficient in order to read sources. Another is acquiring relevant sources, especially from non-elite perspectives, recorded in their original languages, which may be limited in terms of availability and accessibility or completely lost in circulation. Therefore, the transnational history lens is limited by methodological shortcomings such as languages and availability of sources from non-elite perspectives, especially as ‘Empire’ covers a vast geographical and non-geographical area. Along this line, it makes it more difficult to make convincing cases for impacts and changing metropole-colonies dynamics within these multitude of spaces. Hence, understanding of ‘Empire’ as spaces of ruptures would also be limited. Another problem is how to best identify and critically engage with perspectives from non-Western, often non-Anglophone, historiographical contributions on said topics, which would be key to examine ‘Empire’ as spaces of ruptures. As with other previously mentioned methodological problems, the underlying factor is language proficiency in terms of being able to read fluently other historians’ work in their native languages. At the same time, identifying these scholarships and being to access them are two different tasks altogether within the overall process of writing a truly transnational history, in terms of content and scholarship. Another problem with using a transnational history perspective is that as the collapse of European empires resulted in newly independent post-colonial states being established, one of the major tasks of nation-building for many of these states is the writing of national histories as fundamental to creating national identities often through looking at a pre-colonial past and this is still an ongoing and highly politicised process even if national histories are no longer in fashion within Western scholarship. By reshifting scholarship to the writing of a transnational history of ‘Empire’, it would actually hinder the scholarship in these political entities in the reconstruction of their national pasts in terms of the emphasis on understanding different historical loyalties, identities and communities existing within imperial spaces, in contrast to a unitary national identities. At the same time, it has been emphasised that transnational history does not completely compromise the nation-state, but rather complement it as re-orientating ‘Empire’ as spaces of ruptures would actually lead to better understanding of transnational processes facilitated by imperial presence actually led its downfall and the formation of said nation-states. As far as methodological challenges are concerned, these problems are not completely unique to solely transnational history but also apply well to other sub-fields of the historical discipline such as global and comparative history. On another note, this is where the writing of such a transnational history requires a multi-disciplinary approach, as echoed by Iriye back in 1989, in terms of drawing on the insights and methodologies of other social sciences as anthropology and sociology.[25]

However, as a more nascent but growing branch, its practitioners are still very much in the process of building up institutional infrastructures such as research centres and without its own distinct journals yet despite the wide array of scholarly work and journals that are associated with it.[26] This is more prevalent when it comes to re-orientating ‘Empire’ as spaces of historical ruptures. As already noticed by Saunier, the intellectual division of the historical discipline worldwide is still based on that of formal national institutions based in individual countries, which reflect the global reality, as while transnational forces are in motion, the world are still formally divided into nation-states. Therefore, there are possibilities for greater cooperation and exchange of knowledge and resources across institutions, particularly between those of the former imperial metropole and those of the decolonised states. Thus, there are greater possibilities for transnational history to become a distinct sub-field of the historical discipline, particularly in terms of changing the dynamics of imperial history at an infrastructural level for the foreseeable future.

To conclude, the historical discipline of the last decade has been marked by the ‘transnational turn’, in response to forces that define globalisation. This turn compelled historians to look back to examine transnational forces that transcend national boundaries such as economic, cultural and social in terms of circulation, movements, patterns and contacts across different self-contained units, communities and polities that are not necessarily nation-states. This way of looking at history offers plenty of research opportunities, opening a myriad of possibilities in terms of spaces, geographical and non-geographical. There are also opportunities to re-orienting old ones such as that of ‘Empire’ as a multitude of spaces of historical ruptures. Through looking at historical case studies, particularly from the Confucian East Asian world of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and existing scholarships, one could see the various ways the transnational history perspective could be used to re-orientate ‘Empire’ as spaces of historical ruptures, particularly in terms of the roles of intermediaries, circulations and exchanges made possible by imperial presence. Moreover, how ideas and products gained intellectual and cultural currency, thus resulting in ruptures. At the same time, this approach also gives agency to previously ignored historical actors, whose significance within imperial spaces are highlighted. On the other hand, there are also methodological and logistical limitations and challenges, which included the accessibility and availability of sources, especially by constituents who may have not left a significant paper trail and the question of gender. In addition, the problems of languages, especially non-European ones and non-European historiography. At the same time, the prevalence of writing national histories for many post-colonial states, in which a scholarly shift might hamper that process. Despite these problems, there are possibilities for transnational history and its practitioners to strengthen their institutional and infrastructural foundations. At the same time, potential for greater cooperation across institutions in terms of exchange of knowledge and resources. Thus, this would allow for more scholarly work on the transnational history of ‘Empire’ as a multitude of spaces of ruptures.

[1] Pierre-Yves Saunier, Transnational History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 3.

[2] Patricia Clavin, “Time, Manner, Place: Writing Modern History in Global, Transnational and International Contexts,” European History Quarterly 40, no. 4 (2010): 625.

[3] Akira Iriye, “Transnational History”(review article), Contemporary European History 13, no. 2 (May, 2004): 211.

[4] Patricia Clavin, “Define Transnationalism,” Contemporary European History 14, no. 4 (Nov., 2005): 429.

[5] Saunier, Transnational History, 3.

[6] Clavin, “Time, Manner, Place,” 626.

[7]A.G. Hopkins, “Back to the Future: From National History to Imperial History,” Past & Present no. 164 (Aug., 1999): 203.

[8] Christopher Goscha, Vietnam: A New History (New York: Basic Books, 2016): 18–19.

[9] Goscha, Vietnam, 20.

[10] Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier, eds., The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History: From the mid-19th century to the present day (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009): 325–326.

[11] Goscha, Vietnam, 96.

[12] C.A. Bayly et al., “AHR Conversation: On Transnational History,” The American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (December 2006): 1454.

[13] Christopher L. Hill, “Conceptual Universalization in the Transnational Nineteenth Century,” in Global Intellectual History, ed. Samuel Moyn & Andrew Sartori (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013): 149.

[14] Angel Alcalde, “Spatializing transnational history: European spaces and territories,” European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire 25, no.3–4 (2018): 557.

[15] Joshua B. Guild, “‘Nobody in This World Is Better Than Us’: Calypso in the Age of Decolonization and Civil Rights,” in The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights, and Riots in Britain and the United States, ed. Robin D. G. Kelley and Stephen Tuck (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015): 168–169.

[16] Saunier, Transnational History, 180.

[17] C.A. Bayly et al., “AHR Conversation,” 1445.

[18] Ibid, 118.

[19] Youn Dae-Jong, “The Loss of Vietnam: Korean Views of Vietnam in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 9, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 77.

[20] Hopkins, “Back to the Future,” 217.

[21] David A. Bell, “Questioning the Global Turn: The Case of the French Revolution,” French Historical Studies 37, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 4.

[22] Bell, “Questioning,” 17.

[23] Ibid, 19.

[24] C.A. Bayly et al., “AHR Conversation,” 1458.

[25] Akira Iriye, “The Internationalization of History,” The American Historical Review 94, no. 1 (1989): 8.

[26] Anna-Christian L. Knudsen and Karen Gram-Skjoldager, “Historiography and narration in transnational history,” Journal of Global History 9 (2014): 143–144.

Bibliography:

- Books

Goscha, Christopher. Vietnam: A New History. New York: Basic Books, 2016.

Guild, Joshua B. “‘Nobody in This World Is Better Than Us’: Calypso in the Age of Decolonization and Civil Rights.” In The Other Special Relationship: Race, Rights, and Riots in Britain and the United States, edited by Robin D. G. Kelley and Stephen Tuck, 155–172. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Hill, Christopher L. “Conceptual Universalization in the Transnational Nineteenth Century.” In Global Intellectual History, edited by Samuel Moyn & Andrew Sartori, 134–158. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

Saunier, Pierre-Yves. Transnational History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

- Journal articles/reviews

Alcade, Ángel. “Spatializing transnational history: European spaces and territories.” European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire 25, no. 3–4 (2018): 553–567.

Bayly, C. A., Sven Beckert, Matthew Connelly, Isabel Hofmeyr, Wendy Kozol and Patricia Seed. “AHR Conversation: On Transnational History.” The American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (December 2006): 1441–1464.

Bell, David A. “Questioning the Global Turn: The Case of the French Revolution.” French Historical Studies 37, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 1–24.

Clavin, Patricia. “Defining Transnationalism.” Contemporary European History 14, no. 4 (Nov., 2005): 421–439.

Clavin, Patricia. “Time, Manner, Place: Writing Modern European History in Global, Transnational and International Contexts.” European History Quarterly 40, no.4 (2010): 624–640.

Hopkins, A. G. “Back to the Future: From National History to Imperial History.” Past & Present no. 164 (Aug., 1999): 198–243.

Knuden, Ann-Christina L. and Karen Gram Skjoldager. “Historiography and narration in transnational history.” Journal of Global History no. 9 (2014): 143–161.

Iriye, Akira. “The Internationalization of History.” The American Historical Review 94, no.1 (1989): 1–10.

Iriye, Akira. “Transnational History” (review article), Contemporary European History 13, no. 2 (May, 2004): 211–222.

Youn, Dae-jeong. “The Loss of Vietnam: Korean Views of Vietnam in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 9, no. 1 (Winter 2014): 62–95.