Teaching with the Dictionary of Transnational History

The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History may be too bulky to be adopted as a textbook, but many uses can be made of the volume in class room teaching. My experience suggests that the Dictionary may be used effectively in a small class or discussion session where students are introduced to the methodology and historiography of transnational history through specific examples drawn from the book.

 In my case, I used several entries in a graduate seminar taught in Berlin and another in Kyoto, both in 2008. (As the book had not yet been published, I showed some page proofs to the students.) I found that some entries were conducive to a great deal of discussion not only about the subjects covered but also about the ways in which such essays contributed to broadening our understanding of modern history. For instance, I thought “individual identification systems” worked well as an excellent introduction to the study of transnational history inasmuch as the article points to the overriding importance of the state in establishing the identity of individuals. How one goes from here to more transnational identities is a fundamental question in the study of modern history, and in this connection I felt essays like “human rights” and “new man” very useful. Many students were challenged by “spatial regimes” to consider how individuals fitted into, and were governed by, differently defined spaces. For our discussion of transnational history as a historiographic innovation, students benefited from the “history” and “transnational” entries.

Going beyond such basic, conceptual issues, some articles, all of which I gave my students to read, offer information rarely addressed in other history dictionaries or textbooks. For instance, “mail” adds a significant amount of information about one of the key (but neglected, even ignored) aspects of modern history, while “language diplomacy” acquaints the reader with a new way of looking at languages. A topic like “Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization” adds a new perspective on Islam and on internationalism. Other articles deal with seemingly well known subjects but give them an intentionally transnational slant, such as “Nazism” and “European Union.” Still others, such as “environmentalism” and “terrorism,” give a systematic treatment of transnational movements and challenge students to fit them into their understanding of world history.

The Dictionary contains 450 articles, all susceptible of classroom usage. Teachers will have an infinite variety of ways in which they can make use of the entries so as to enrich the students’ understanding of modern history, especially of themes that go beyond nation-centric presentations of the past that still abound in the literature. Above all, these articles should stimulate and encourage students to consider alternative chronologies. In virtually every textbook, endlessly repeated, familiar episodes are placed in a chronology that privileges national political developments (party politics, revolution, independence, nation-making) and international affairs (great-power geopolitics, hot and cold wars, imperialism and de-colonization). Transnational themes should enable readers to consider other dates than, say, 1914, 1917, or 1945 as having been of equal, if not greater significance in shaping the contemporary world.

Akira Iriye is co-editor of The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History.