Harvard professor to deliver history department's Alumni Lecture on World War I

8:44 a.m., Sept. 29, 2014--To commemorate the centennial of the “Great War,” Harvard University historian Erez Manela will deliver a free, public lecture about World War I at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 9, in 104 Gore Hall on the University of Delaware’s Newark campus.

The Alumni Memorial lecture, sponsored by UD’s Department of History, is titled “Empires at War: The Great War as a Global Conflict.” A reception and book-signing in the Gore Hall atrium will follow the lecture. 

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University of Delaware graduates planning to attend Alumni Weekend are encouraged to register for the annual Blue Hen 5K walk and run, which will be held Sunday morning, June 5.

June 6-9: Food and culture series

The 20th annual June Lecture Series at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UD in Wilmington will be held June 6-9. Titled 'June a la Carte,' this year's program focuses on great political documents, feminism, world politics and a Newark cuisine sampler.

• June 6-9: Food and culture series
• Through June 30: 'Saving White Clay Creek'
• July 22: WWE Heatwave Tour
• Through Sept. 16: Women of color in academia

Manela, professor of history at Harvard, is a leading scholar of international history and of the ways in which World War I shaped the ensuing global order.

His prize-winning book, The Wilsonian Moment, transformed how historians wrote about the peace negotiations that followed the war. By analyzing how colonized and stateless groups around the world responded to Woodrow Wilson’s call for “self-determination of all peoples,” Manela demonstrated the unintended consequences of Wilson’s position, particularly in Egypt, Korea, India and China.

Manela’s new book, on which he will be speaking Oct. 9, is Empires at War, 1911-1923. It recasts World War I as a global war of empires rather than — as it has often been portrayed — a European war among nation-states.

The book expands the usual timeline for the war in order to include significant conflicts that preceded and followed it, including the crushing violence that ensued after the collapse of the Ottoman, Austrian and Russian empires. It situates the war of 1914-18 within the wider context of imperial warfare that began in 1911 and did not end until 1923. 

The recipient of a number of fellowships and awards, Manela is currently a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. He is completing two book projects: a re-examination of the U.S.-China alliance during World War II, and a book titled The Eradication of Smallpox: Collaboration amid Conflict in the Cold War Era.

In addition to the Alumni Lecture, he will present a colloquium at 1:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 10, in 236 Munroe Hall on the topic “The U.S. in the World: The State of the Field.”

Manela’s visit is made possible by contributions from UD History Department Alumni and the Faculty Committee on Cultural Activities and Public Events. For more information, visit the department website or call 302-831-2371.

For a flyer about the event, click here.