Author Description
Making Minorities History examines the various attempts made by European states over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, under the umbrella of international law and in the name of international peace and reconciliation, to rid the Continent of its ethnographic misfits and problem populations. It is principally a study of the concept of 'population transfer' - the idea that, in order to construct stable and homogeneous nation-states and a peaceful international order out of them, national minorities could be relocated en masse in an orderly way with minimal economic and political disruption as long as there was sufficient planning, bureaucratic oversight, and international support in place. Tracing the rise and fall of the concept from its emergence in the late 1890s through its 1940s zenith, and its geopolitical and historiographical afterlife during the Cold War, Making Minorities History explores the historical context and intellectual milieu in which population transfer developed from being initially regarded as a marginal idea propagated by a handful of political fantasists and extreme nationalists into an acceptable and a 'progressive' instrument of state policy, as amenable to bourgeois democracies and Nobel Peace Prize winners as it was to authoritarian regimes and fascist dictators. In addition to examining the planning and implementation of population transfers, and in particular the diplomatic negotiations surrounding them, Making Minorities History looks at a selection of different proposals for the resettlement of minorities that came from individuals, organizations, and states during this era of population transfer.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates how the concept of population transfer evolved from a fringe nationalist idea into an accepted instrument of state policy in twentieth-century Europe. Matthew Frank, a historian specializing in modern European history, utilizes extensive diplomatic records and archival research to analyze how international law and the pursuit of homogeneous nation-states facilitated the mass relocation of minority groups. The work argues that the normalization of these transfers was a cross-ideological phenomenon, adopted by both democratic and authoritarian regimes under the guise of maintaining international peace.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of population transfer policies from the 1890s through the 1940s.
- Examination of diplomatic negotiations and bureaucratic planning behind mass resettlements.
- Case studies of proposals from various individuals, organizations, and states.
- Exploration of the historiographical afterlife of these policies during the Cold War.
Scope Limits
- The study focuses primarily on European state policies and does not provide an exhaustive global history of population displacement.
- It does not focus on the lived experiences of individual refugees, prioritizing instead the high-level political and intellectual history of the concept.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars recognize this text as a rigorous examination of the intellectual and political history of forced migration in Europe. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the author's meticulous use of primary source documentation to challenge conventional narratives regarding the origins of population transfer.
Page Count:
464
Publication Date:
2017-01-01
ISBN-10:
019101771X
ISBN-13:
9780191017711
History
Sociology
Human rights
International relations
European History