Introduction: Historical International Relations

Disciplinary International Relations (IR) grew in part out of the discipline of History. Even so, the subfield of Historical International Relations (HIR) is a relatively new one. In this introduction, the authors start by presenting the overall trajectory of historical work in the IR discipline, how it was central to the founding of scholarly IR but was somewhat marginalised during the Cold War, and how it has had a gradual resurgence since the 1980s, gaining steam around the turn of the century. As detailed in recent IR historiography, the Anglo-American discipline of IR grew out of a number of different academic traditions, including colonial administration, international law, history and political science. Thinking of HIR of course immediately brings up debates about the relations between History and IR. Handbooks come in many different shapes and forms. As the various disciplinary traditions, topics of study and areas show, HIR is far from being a monolithic field or approach.