Although international historians remain prone to status anxiety, haunted by the spectre of their

lost 19th-century pre-eminence, in many respects the place of the study of international
relations within the wider discipline and culture is more secure than for some time. The impact of
9/11 and the subsequent 'war on terror' demonstrated that the traditional concerns of the field –
how states and societies interact; the nature, rationale and justification for the exercise of
military power; when war can be avoided and how it should be fought – were once more of vital
political, intellectual and moral relevance. International historians of all complexions can make
distinctive contributions to these debates and are finding a ready audience.

This said, diversity also brings the risk of waning cohesion. International history has always
existed in a complex web of relationships with cognate disciplines like international relations and
sub-disciplines such as military or imperial history and its borders have thus not always been
readily apparent. Moreover, its sovereignty over the terrain of the international is today
additionally threatened as other historians, literary and cultural scholars and social scientists in
myriad disciplines make their own postcolonial, transnational and globalising turns.

Suggested responses to these challenges are starkly contrasting. Some international historians
hark for a return to the past, advocating a fully-fledged flight from fashion back to the grand
traditions of classical diplomatic history. More sophisticated 'mainstream' scholars acknowledge a
productive contribution from 'culturalism' but urge a stabilisation that leaves the core analysands
of states and policy-makers at centre stage. At the other extreme, some 'culturalists' advocate
the near dissolution of the sub-discipline as they preach the virtues of further interdisciplinary
collaboration and the acceleration of the transnational turn.(13) How international history will
move forward thus remains an open question.