i wonder how these poeple at the congress understood eachother? I mean they all came from different countries and im sure the english language wasnt as widely spoken back then as it is today. Did they have translators? was that a thing back in the 1800?
Great question! The short answer is that French was the language of diplomacy at the time, and many of the participants would have spoken it well enough to hold a conversation. Metternich spoke several languages and was one of the main interpreters in the room at all times, but there would have been other translators working behind the scenes on the phrasing of treaty language. There's a little snippet about this - including one of the translators at the time complaining that they weren't used more - here: www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/two-centuries-diplomatic-interpreting-top-hat-short-sleeves-diplomacy
this is a slightly dumb question but something that struck me nonetheless: considering that the rising popularity of liberal ideals and the idea of universal rights coincided with colonialism in places like India,how come there wasn't a bigger outburst among western thinkers against colonialism? Did they feel that things like rights and democracy were only applicable for those of particular races/nationalities?
Not a dumb question at all! While I don't want to over-generalize, early IR scholars were pretty uncritical towards the idea of colonialism and empire (although of course there were some that disagreed, but that was not the majority). For the most part, they accepted that empire and colonies were an integral part of how the system was set up, even though that meant - as you point out - fewer rights and oppression for people in those colonies. Some argue that the discipline of IR itself has racist roots. There's some more on this in an interesting Twitter thread by Paul Poast: twitter.com/ProfPaulPoast/status/1274678767978524672
@@PatrickTheiner thank you this was helpful...its definitely interesting to see how even progressive ideas did not extend to beyond various social groups
I understand completely, but I've decided against that - I can't control where they'd end up, and I need to preserve SOME benefits for my own students who pay tuition at Edinburgh. Sorry! Hope the lecture is useful nonetheless.
The emergent prominence of china in particular explains the hysteria and uneasiness in the west as international relations have been west and european centric but now this is being challenged by non western states.
This is pure gold.✨
Glad that i stumbled across this and keep up the good work.👍
Nice lesson, short but informative. Thank you
You are the best ! Watching from Turkey
Thank you from Canada!
What a great delivery of how modern IR came to be! Also, "Tight pants" diplomacy lol
i wonder how these poeple at the congress understood eachother? I mean they all came from different countries and im sure the english language wasnt as widely spoken back then as it is today. Did they have translators? was that a thing back in the 1800?
Great question! The short answer is that French was the language of diplomacy at the time, and many of the participants would have spoken it well enough to hold a conversation. Metternich spoke several languages and was one of the main interpreters in the room at all times, but there would have been other translators working behind the scenes on the phrasing of treaty language. There's a little snippet about this - including one of the translators at the time complaining that they weren't used more - here:
www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/two-centuries-diplomatic-interpreting-top-hat-short-sleeves-diplomacy
thats so interesting, thank you for the quick response!@@PatrickTheiner
this is a slightly dumb question but something that struck me nonetheless: considering that the rising popularity of liberal ideals and the idea of universal rights coincided with colonialism in places like India,how come there wasn't a bigger outburst among western thinkers against colonialism? Did they feel that things like rights and democracy were only applicable for those of particular races/nationalities?
Not a dumb question at all! While I don't want to over-generalize, early IR scholars were pretty uncritical towards the idea of colonialism and empire (although of course there were some that disagreed, but that was not the majority). For the most part, they accepted that empire and colonies were an integral part of how the system was set up, even though that meant - as you point out - fewer rights and oppression for people in those colonies.
Some argue that the discipline of IR itself has racist roots. There's some more on this in an interesting Twitter thread by Paul Poast:
twitter.com/ProfPaulPoast/status/1274678767978524672
@@PatrickTheiner thank you this was helpful...its definitely interesting to see how even progressive ideas did not extend to beyond various social groups
Doc can i get my hands on those slides? 🙏
I understand completely, but I've decided against that - I can't control where they'd end up, and I need to preserve SOME benefits for my own students who pay tuition at Edinburgh. Sorry! Hope the lecture is useful nonetheless.
@@PatrickTheiner Thanks anyway, because these lectures are 👌
The emergent prominence of china in particular explains the hysteria and uneasiness in the west as international relations have been west and european centric but now this is being challenged by non western states.