In general, International History is considered to be a young discipline. Indeed, the first chairs, working groups and institutes bearing this name were founded not before the 20th century. Yet, international relations are among the oldest subjects of historiography: from ancient Egypt and classical Greece through the age of enlightenment to the Cold War, diplomatic negotiations, military campaigns, economic comparison and cultural relations have not only loomed large in state-sponsored historiography, but also inspired generations of historians. Until the age of historicism, more often than not, International History was “contemporary history” in the true sense, analyzing current developments. Since the 1940s increasingly criticized for being “deplorably unmethodological,” “predictably dull,” “unhealthily preoccupied with the arcane machinations of elite males,” “irrelevant and fusty compared to … competitors like social and economic history,” diplomatic history, in particular, was revived as a consequence of the opening of formerly communist archives. This lecture will shed some light on the main phases and achievements as well as current debates in the history of an old, yet remarkably young discipline. 

Univ. Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Mueller is full professor of Russian history and permanent lecturer in the history of international relations at the University of Vienna, permanent visiting professor at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy, corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, former founding deputy director of the Institute of Modern and Contemporary Historical Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, former visiting professor in Bern, Rostock, and Nice, and a former visiting fellow at Stanford University and the Russian Academy of Sciences. His main fields of research are Russian/Soviet history, International History, the Cold War; selected publications are: Die sowjetische Besatzung in Österreich 1945–55 (2005); The Austrian State Treaty 1955 (ed. 2005); A Good Example of Peaceful Coexistence? The USSR, Neutrality and Austria (2011); The Revolutions of 1989 (ed. 2015); Kommunismus und Europa (ed. 2016); International History (ed. 2017).