The study of war and warfare through the centuries has generated increasing scholarly attention over the last years. In the resulting literature, historians have tended to focus on pre-war settings, war experiences, and the influence of war memories on national identities. Yet, despite the well-known case of the post-1945 period, it is only recently that scholars working in the field of the so-called “New Military History” have discovered the study of post-war epochs as times of reconstruction and thus as a rewarding fields of historical inquiry.

Aims

More often than not, wars between nation-states were accompanied or followed by internal conflict, social disruption, or even civil war. Thus post-war settings can be viewed as times of transition and the negotiation of power on various levels. States strive for economic reconstruction and social integration, but they also face struggles over the reallocation of domestic power and the redistribution of international influence. This conference aims at considering domestic politics and foreign policy as interdependent spaces of reconstruction. It does so by examining attempts to overcome internal conflict and devastation in the light of parallel efforts to (re)enter the international arena and reassess European and global power relations. Its premise is that distinct types of warfare, on the one hand, and diverging strategies for reconstruction and reconciliation, on the other, have together had immense impact on the shape of postwar societies. Examining postwar decades of reconstruction from the Seven Years War to the 1950s, conference participants will also consider whether, and to what extent, postwar politics were influenced by losing or winning the previous war.

Call for Papers

This conference aims to unite academics focusing on the immediate aftermath of wars that ended in 1763, 1814/1815, 1865/1866/1871, 1918, and 1945. Combining thematic and chronological approaches will facilitate a genuinely comparative analysis and will generate new insights in reconstructing postwar contexts in Central and Western Europe as well as in North America.

We especially welcome papers that

- discover continuities and discontinuities in pre-war, war and post-war settings

- look at long term comparative perspectives

- discuss the relation between wars and the loss or gain of imperial power

Keynote Speaker
James J. Sheehan (Stanford)

The conference is generously funded by

German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C.
The Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto
German Academic Exchange Service, Bonn
and other co-sponsors.

Deadlines, procedures and time schedule

The language of the conference is English. Please send abstracts with up to 300 words to ute.planert@utoronto.ca by December, 31st 2012. In order to ensure maximum discussion time, full papers will be circulated among the participants in advance of the conference. Full papers are due by March, 31st, 2013. Every participant will be attributed 10 minutes time to elaborate on the respective topic on site. The conference proceedings will be published in English. Deadline for final papers is September, 30th, 2013.