Hayden White, international history and questions too seldom posed

Abstract

This article assesses how far it is possible to discern any form of what we might term a Whitean sensibility amongst contemporary practitioners of the history of international politics. An audit of contemporary practice reveals a good deal of work which is frankly disappointing by the yardstick of White, some of which reflects at least a degree of sensitivity to his concerns, and some of which demonstrates both his clear stimulus and hopeful portents for the fruitful future application of his ideas.

Keywords:

• Hayden White
• international history
• textuality
• emplotment
• politics
• historiography

Notes

1. I discussed Young's book in an earlier piece in this journal (Finney 1997, 367–70). Tellingly, I can think of very few examples of this type of approach that have been produced in the decade since, though I make no claim to have surveyed the totality of output in the sub-discipline.

2. My appropriation of White here somewhat inverts his original point, that the realist intentions of authors cannot be securely realised in narrativising texts.

3. Not that Jackson is by any means a naïve empiricist: he advocates the use of Pierre Bourdieu's social theory to facilitate this new approach – and many culturalists – myself included on occasions – make similar claims for the virtues of their preferred methodologies.

4. There are further stimulating thoughts on the historiography of this subject in Winter and Prost 2005.