The revisionist historiography is important to international relations as spelled out by Vitalis Robert. He supports the claim that empire and imperialism were key themes during the introduction of the field. In the early part of the 20 th Century. The main issue of the topic is of the role of racism, race, and white supremacy had and continues to have on the transformation of International Relations. Taking accounts from African American studies he asks what types of strategies have been used in history that make race become invisible to the conventional international relations theory. In order to reconstruct the discussion with regard to race, he argues that two things are necessary including the establishment of the origins of the field and the proper identification of the context in which international relations appears as a professional field of study. He agrees with the view that the origin of this field can be traced back to the conventional post-World War 1 in which important developments were taking place between 1900 and 1910.
As regards context, Vitalis argues that the most important context to institutions and individuals that were in the field in formation was the empire. The empire context helps to account for the fact that many pioneers in the field of international relations wrote and taught about nationalism and imperialism. They articulated strategies to be used for administering colonial territories and the uplifting of backward races. He also concentrated on the university and institutional context where international relations developed in the United States where he reinforced his arguments about the strength of race. He opined that, for example, international relations’ first academic journal was not something to do with foreign affairs but was instead a journal of race development that started its publication in 1910 (V italis, 2010).
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References
Vitalis, R. (2010). The Noble American Science of Imperial Relations and its Laws of Race Development. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 52, 4, 909-938
