New Books in Diplomatic History

China’s Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Emily Matson is an in-depth investigation of the Chinese Communist Party’s remapping of China’s World War II timeline from eight years (1937–1945) to fourteen years (1931–1945). Instead of the previously accepted starting date of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, the Chinese Communist Party defined the war’s starting date as the Mukden Incident on September 18, 1931, which triggered the Japanese Kwantung Army’s invasion of Manchuria. Since the 1980s, scholars from Manchuria have demanded a fourteen-year war timeline to encompass the invasion of their homeland. By the 1990s, other scholars took notice and started to counter with claims that the eight-year timeline was the more accurate. Subsequently, a fierce “date debate” emerged between the two sides that was only resolved by the 2017 proclamation from the Ministry of Education.

Dr. Matson demonstrates that the decision to set China’s World War II timeline at fourteen years was not merely a top-down decision, but was influenced by decades of Manchurian scholarship on the war. China’s Date Debate recenters Manchuria as a region of critical importance for China’s national identity today and the implications of this “date debate” on the Chinese Communist Party’s domestic legitimacy and international image.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blue Sea, Black Gold, Red Banner: The South Caucasus and Scandinavia, 1880s–1920s
(Northern Illinois University Press, 2026) tells the story of the
historical connections between two geographically distant and culturally
distinct regions on the edges of Europe: Scandinavia and the South
Caucasus. From the late nineteenth century, maritime trade fostered new
commercial links and consular relations. Scandinavian merchants,
particularly in Batumi and Baku, played key roles. The discovery of oil
along the Caspian Sea shores attracted Scandinavian entrepreneurs,
notably the Swedish Nobel family, helping to develop Baku into a booming
industrial hub.

Tom
Trier focuses on the years of upheaval surrounding World War I and the
collapse of the Russian Empire, when Georgia—along with Armenia and
Azerbaijan—briefly emerged
as an independent republic. The four-decade relationship ended abruptly
during the Bolshevik Red Army's invasion of the South Caucasus from
1920 to 1921. Drawing on both Scandinavian and Georgian perspectives, Blue Sea, Black Gold, Red Banner
examines how Nordic merchants, consuls, and diplomats navigated the
shifting political landscape and how Georgia's social democratic
leadership looked to neutral Scandinavia as a gateway to broader
European political, diplomatic, and economic engagement.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Foreign Secretary in Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet in 1937, Eden
didn't believe in appeasing the German and Italian dictatorships or the
militaristic Japanese regime. Instead, he wanted to confront their
aggression head on. Faced with growing Japanese assertiveness, including
the launching of an undeclared war on China in July 1937, Eden appealed
to the US for help. He believed sending an Anglo-American naval force
to the Western Pacific would demonstrate that the democracies were not
spineless, but were prepared to stand up for what they believed in. Was
this a viable alternative to Chamberlain's appeasement policy, now
notorious for its failure in the face of fascism?

In Eden's Alternative to Appeasement: The Anglo-American Strategy that Might Have Been, 1937–38 (Tithebarn Press, 2026), historian
Malcolm Murfett tells the story, using a wide range of primary sources
from the UK and US archives, of Eden's push to persuade Roosevelt's
administration to be more assertive in the Pacific. He reveals the
diplomatic dance both sides engaged in, each unsure of the other's
reliability, of their own ability to commit, and tied up in their own
internal struggles for policy dominance. We get a real insight into how
two once-and-future allies managed each other's expectations, as well as
the wider strategic parameters within which they were operating.

With
eerie echoes of our own times, Murfett explores the challenges involved
in both international diplomacy, and foreign and security policy. How
standing up for principles and values can become compromised by the
requirements of Realpolitik, and logistical constraints.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Constructing the Medieval Maritime State: Identity, Violence, and Connection in the Mediterranean (Oxford
University Press, 2026) by Professor Travis Bruce explores how the
small medieval kingdom of Denia in Spain became a powerful maritime
state after the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate. Its rulers built
authority, not only through war and seafaring raids but also by
connecting Denia to wider Mediterranean trade, diplomacy, and culture.

The rise and evolution of the taifa
of Denia is a powerful case study for understanding the construction of
medieval maritime states in the Mediterranean. Dr. Bruce situates Denia
within the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate and explores how its rulers
forged legitimacy through identity formation, maritime violence, and
regional connectivity. Denia's identity was negotiated through
rulership, unfreedom, and cultural hybridity, and violence —
particularly predatory warfare and maritime jihad — functioned as both
statecraft and economic extraction. At the same time, Denia's
entanglement in commercial, diplomatic, and intellectual networks
positioned it as a key node linking the Islamic Mediterranean and the
Latin West. The state's trajectory cannot be reduced to narratives of
decline or simple religious conflict but instead reveals a process of
negotiation shaped by mobility, interdependence, and the fluid
boundaries between public and private power. This narrative reframes
Mediterranean history beyond Eurocentric paradigms and underscores the
significance of Islamic maritime states within the wider medieval world.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Examining the emergence of international public health policy between the 1930s and 80s, The Emergence of International Health Policy in Southeast Asia, India, and Sri Lanka, 1937–1978
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2026) by Dr. Vivek Neelakantan sheds light on the
role that rural community health initiatives in South and Southeast Asia
played in the movement towards ‘primary health care’ and ‘health for
all,’ articulated ultimately at the 1978 International Conference on
Primary Health Care in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. The author argues that the
movement was not directed exclusively from the headquarters of the World
Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, but also by institutions such as
the Rockefeller Foundation’s International Health Division in rural
Southeast Asia, and through local community initiatives including the
Bandung Plan for Health in Indonesia.

The book illustrates how an exclusive association of global health with the emergence of the WHO in the 1950s fails to
account for the local, national, or regional contexts that shaped the
evolution of primary health care in South and Southeast Asia.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices