Research

Heirs to the Throne in the Constitutional Monarchies of Nineteenth-Century Europe (1815-1914)

A Research Project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Dr Frank Lorenz Müller

On the eve of the First World War Europe was a continent of monarchies. A long 19th century of revolutions, wars, growing literacy, an expanding public sphere, political parties appealing to enlarged electorates, changes in social, economic, intellectual and technological life and imperial expansion lay behind them, but the continent's monarchical systems had survived these changes in surprisingly rude health. That monarchies had flourished throughout these profound transformations points to their suppleness and ingenuity.

This research project will, for the first time, focus systematically and comparatively on the roles played and contributions made by those waiting to come into the glittering inheritance of a European crown. The biological realities of hereditary rule made heirs to the throne a crucial part of monarchical systems. By analysing the heirs to the continent's many thrones, the project will offer a new perspective on the political culture of the states and societies of 19th-century Europe.

The project will build on the rich body of recent research that engages with 19th-century monarchy in the fields of media history, cultural history and transnational history. It will address thematic questions across several constitutional monarchies: Did heirs to the throne stabilise monarchical government or were they corrosive of the current reign? What were the international and military roles of heirs? Did heirs function as intermediaries between the sovereign and the people? How important were new “bourgeois” styles of princely comportment and the creation of a celebrity public image through various media? Were heirs perceived as embodying generational change? Were heirs engaged in generating “soft power”?

The project will explore the resourcefulness, media acumen and societal integration of 19th-century monarchies. It will complement and challenge interpretations which emphasize their allegedly oppressive elements and help to explain the lasting popularity of monarchy.

A History of International Humanitarian Associations from 1850 to 1950

Dr Davide Rodogno

The research project deals with a lacuna in modern history examining five international humanitarian associations - the ancestors of today's NGOs:

• the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
• the League of Red Cross Societies
• Save the Children Fund 
• Union Internationale de Secours aux Enfants
• the Fédération Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme.

The project explores, in a comparative perspective, four main themes: the origins and ideology, the structures, the field-missions, and the impact of these associations at the local, national, transnational and international levels. It will take into account cooperation as well as rivalry among these associations, and will devote particular attention to the rapport between these organizations and the League of Nations during the inter-war period, as well as with the United Nations in the late 1940s. The aim of the project is to assess the role and importance of these associations with respect to international relations.

The project, led by Dr. Davide Rodogno, is funded by the Fond National Suisse with a budget of 1,150,000 CHF. It runs from 2008-2012. Two research assistants are associated with this project: Ms. Shaloma Gauthier & Ms. Francesca Piana.

The liberal schism: Liberal scholars, the student revolt of '1968' and the re-coding of the political culture in West Germany and the United States

Dr Riccardo Bavaj

This project will be funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Feodor Lynen Research Fellowship) from September 2009.

This project investigates reactions of liberal scholars to the student revolt in West Germany and the United States in the mid- and late 1960s. Dr Bavaj's project argues that the student revolts of '1968' made a considerable contribution to a 'liberal schism' that was at the heart of a significant re-coding of the political culture in both West Germany and the United States at that time. In both countries, liberal scholars reacting to the student revolt were prime examples of the bifurcation of a 'liberal consensus' which had proved culturally hegemonic in the US since the 1940s, and had been about to become established in West Germany since the late 1950s. Contrary to journalists and writers, for instance, this particular group of major representatives of 'consensus liberalism' were directly and immediately confronted with student activism. Since his study aims to capture the larger impact of the liberal scholars' reactions to the revolt, Dr Bavaj will focus on academics who equally were intellectuals, i.e. scholars whose commentaries were targeted at a wider public, and whose readership transcended the boundaries of the university. The central hypothesis of his study is that the response pattern of liberal scholars vis-à-vis the student revolt was similar in both countries despite the striking differences between two political cultures characterized by recent pasts which in many respects were diametrically opposed to each other. The similarity of the response pattern can be largely attributed to significant transfers of knowledge and political ideas between US-American and (West) German scholars from the late 1930s to the early 1960s.

Model republic: Images of the United States in late nineteenth century Spain

Dr Kate Ferris

The research project explores the ways in which the United States was imagined by Spanish liberal elites in the closing three decades of the nineteenth century and how these images informed and helped shape notions of identity, nationhood and modernity in Spain. This project forms part of a wider AHRC-funded collaborative project with colleagues form UCL looking at the images of the United States in 10th century Europe and Latin America.

The topography of movement: networks and circulation of knowledge. A database of English travel writing, 1700-1914

Dr Bernhard Struck

European culture of 18th and 19th century is unimaginable without the information disseminated through the practice of travel and travel-writing. Despite a growing interest in travel and travel-writing in various disciplines since the early 1980s - an interest fostered more recently by discussions evolving around post-colonial, global and world history. Little is known on a quantitative level about geographical destinations, the topography of travel or the shifts and rhythms of publications of travel accounts.

The central aim of the project is to establish a database of accounts printed in Britain between 1700 and 1914. The database will comprise information on authors, titles, places and years of publication, further editions and location (libraries) as well as brief descriptions of destinations and routes and year(s) of travel.