Dr Martin D. Brown

Associate Professor of International History

Dr Brown holds a Ph.D. in International History from the University of Surrey, and a M. A. in central and eastern European studies from the School Of Slavonic and East European Studies (S.S.E.E.S.) at the University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (F.R.Hist.S.) and a member of the Steering Committee of the British-Czech-Slovak Historians' Forum.

The primary focus of his recent research has been European diplomatic history. He is currently studying British foreign policy during the era of Détente leading up to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. He has just co-edited a collection of essays written by distinguished central European historians on the history of Slovakia for Cambridge University Press, which will be published in 2010/11.

His last book, Dealing with Democrats. The British Foreign Office’s relations with the Czechoslovak émigrés in Great Britain, 1939-1945 , was published in 2006 as part of the series Mitteleuropa - Osteuropa. Oldenburger Beiträge zur Kultur und Geschichte Ostmitteleuropas. It dealt with British foreign policy formation and decision making during the last war (1939-45), and in particular the Foreign Office's relations with the Czechoslovak Government-in-exile. A Czech language translation (Jak se jedná s Demokraty. Britské ministerstvo zahranicí a ceskoslovenská emigrace ve Velké Británii, 1939-1945) was published by Pavel Dobrovský – Beta, Prague, in October 2008.

Further details can be found at: Dealing with Democrats

His wider research interests include: British foreign policy; diplomatic history, modern European history, 1800-1989; the role of myth in history and the influence of the Cold War on historiography; the Second World War and collective memory; minority questions in central Europe; the Communist system in central and eastern Europe, 1947 to 1989; the historiography of the transfer/expulsion of the Sudeten German population from Czechoslovakia after the end of the Second World War.

Dr Brown has also had a wide experience of writing for, and working in, New Media journalism. He was a senior editor at the Central Europe Review from 1998 to 2000. An award winning, and internationally recognised, weekly Internet journal, and winner of the European Online Journalism Award for Outstanding Contribution to Online Journalism in Europe, July 2000. In addition, he was a regular contributor, and member of the European advisory board, for the international forum (now closed) known as BlueEar.com , and has contributed a number of articles to, Balkan Analysis ; Britské listy ; and Open Democracy.

Courses Taught

FYS 110
Bond and Beyond: A Cultural and Political History of a ‘Bondian’ World, 1953 to the Present.

INR 210
The Evolution of International Systems

HIST 316
Pictures of Power: History, Image and Propaganda

HST 323
The Rise of the Right: A History of Fascisms

INR 330
Diplomatic Studies

HST 367
Nationalism and Conflict

INR 503
The Origins and Development of International Relations

Publications

Books:

Slovakia in History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, [Co-editor with Professors Mikuláš Teich (Cambridge) and Dušan Kovác (Bratislava)](Forthcoming, 2010).

Jak se jedná s Demokraty. Britské ministerstvo zahranicí a ceskoslovenská emigrace ve Velké Británii, 1939-1945, Pavel Dobrovský – Beta, Prague, 2008.

[Reviews of Jak se jedná s Demokraty: David Vaughan, 'Martin Brown: a post-Cold War perspective on the wartime Czechoslovak government in London',Ceský rozhlas 7, 23 November 2008; 'Odsuny Nemcu naplánovali Britové', Lidové noviny, 31 October 2008.]

Dealing with Democrats. The British Foreign Office’s relations with the Czechoslovak émigrés in Great Britain, 1939-1945, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2006.

[Reviews of Dealing with Democrats : Petr Svik,‘Review’, Central Europe, vol. 7, no. 2 (November 2009), 182-83; Dr Eva Hahn, Book review in Bohemistik (May 2008); Tomáš Mrva, ‘Londýnsky exil bez (západných) mýtov’, Knihy a spolocnost, no. 1(2007), 4; Pawel Jaworski, ‘Review’, Slaski kwartalnik historyczny sobótka, no.1 (2007), 126-8; Michael Ivory, ‘Weighty academic study is objective and thorough’, British Czech and Slovak Review, (October/November 2006), 10; Martin Škabraha, ‘Beneš a nenucená nadrazenost’, Ekonom, no. 34 (August 2006), 42-3.]

Peer reviewed publications and conference proceedings:

‘A very British vision of Détente: The United Kingdom’s foreign policy during the Helsinki process, 1969–1975’, in Piers Ludlow (ed.), Overcoming the Iron Curtain: Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–1990, Berghahn books. (Forthcoming: 2010).

„Desperackie lekarstwo”. Brytyjskie Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych, Wenzel Jaksch i „kwestia sudetoniemiecka” (pazdziernik 1938 – grudzien 1945)’ [‘“A desperate remedy”: The British Foreign Office, Wenzel Jaksch and the ‘Sudeten German question’, 1938 to 1945’], Przeglad Zachodni [Western Review], vol. 327, no. 2 (2008), 45-70.

‘Setting Europe ablaze? : The Special Operations Executive’s (SOE) attempts to foster resistance in Central Europe and its relations with the Czechoslovak Government-in-exile, 1940-1945’, in Martin Rady and Péter László (eds.) Resistance, Rebellion and Revolution in Hungary and Central Europe: Commemorating 1956, UCL SSEES, London, 2008, pp. 145-158.

‘A Munich Winter or a Prague Spring? The evolution of British policy towards the Sudeten Germans from October 1938 to September 1939’, in H. H. Hahn (ed.), Hundert Jahre sudetendeutsche Geschichte. Eine völkische Bewegung in drei Staaten, Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main, 2007, pp.257-273.

„Nigdy nie narzekaj, nigdy nie wyjasniaj”. Wplyw Foreign Office na ksztaltowanie stosunków brytyjsko-polsko-czechoslowackich w latach 1939-1945’ [‘ “Never complain, never explain”. The Foreign Office’s influence on the formation of British policy with regard to Anglo-Polish-Czechoslovak relations in exile, 1939-1945’], in P. Blažk, P. Jaworski, L. Kaminski (eds.), Miedzy przymusowa przyjaznia a prawdziwa solidarnoscia: Czesi – Polacy – Slowacy, 1938/39 – 1945 – 1989 , vol. 1 [Between compulsory friendship and true solidarity: Czechs – Poles – Slovaks], Institute of National Memory, Warsaw, 2007, pp. 101-109.

‘Forcible population transfers – A flawed legacy or an unavoidable necessity in protracted ethnic conflicts? The case of the Sudeten Germans’, in J. Black (ed.), The Second Wold War, vol. 2, The German War, 1943-1945, Ashcroft, Aldershot, 2007, pp.377-383.

‘The S.O.E. and the failure of the Slovak National Uprising’ History Today, vol. 54, no. 12 (December 2004), 39-45.

‘Forcible population transfers – A flawed legacy or an unavoidable necessity in protracted ethnic conflicts? The case of the Sudeten Germans’, RUSI (The Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies) Journal, vol. 148, no. 4 (August 2003), 81-87.

Book reviews and other publications:

Book Review : Wilfried Loth and Georges-Henri Soutou (eds.), The Making of Détente. Eastern and Western Europe in the Cold War, 1965-75 , London, 2008; English Historical Review, vol. CXXV(August 2010), 1062-3.

Book Review : Andreas Wenger, Vojtech Mastny, and Christian Nuenlist (eds.), Origins of the European Security System. The Helsinki process revisited, 1965-75, London, 2008; English Historical Review, vol. CXXV(June 2010), 789-90.

Book Review: T. Fauth, Deutsche Kulturpolitik im Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren 1939 bis 1941 [German Cultural Politics in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia from 1939 to 1941], Dresden, 2004; English Historical Review, vol. CXXII, no. 498 (September 2007), 1110-1111.

Book Review: V. Houžvicka, Návraty sudetské otázky [Return of the Sudeten Question], Prague, 2005; British Czech and Slovak Review, no. 90 (April to May 2006), 6.

Book Review: M. Howard, The Invention of Peace: Reflections on War and International Order, London, 2000 & W. Schivelbusch, (Trans. Jefferson Chase), The Culture of Defeat: On National, Trauma, Mourning, and Recovery, London, 2003; Balkan Analysis, (26 April 2004).
Balkan Analysis

‘Znovu k sudetonemeckému problému: O zneužívání propagandy [New material on the Sudeten German question: The misuses of propaganda]’, Britské listy, (24 February 2004).
Britské listy

‘EU report does not settle all doubts over Beneš’s Decrees’, British Czech and Slovak Review, no. 70 (December 2002 to January 2003), 1-2.

‘Ironies of freedom: Radio Free Europe from anti-communism to anti-terrorism’, Open Democracy, (14 March 2002).
Open Democracy

M. D. Brown & E. Hahn, ‘The Sudeten dialogues (Parts I & II)’, Central Europe Review, vol. 3, no. 16 (7 May 2001).
Central Europe Review

Book Review: L. Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilisation on the Mind of the Enlightenment, SUP, Stanford, 1994; British Czech and Slovak Review, no. 60 (April to May 2001), 1-2.

‘The gold chase: Zlatý Poklad RCS’, Central Europe Review, vol. 2, no. 11 (20 March 2000).

'Historical amnesia and post-Cold War attitudes in the Czech Republic. A reappraisal in the light of new archival research', Masaryk Journal, vol. 3, no. 1 (January 2000), 141-155.

‘History, historiography and myth’, Central Europe Review, vol. 1, no. 16 (11 October 1999).

Book Review: J. Musil, (ed.), The End of Czechoslovakia, Budapest, 1997 & K. Williams, The Prague Spring and its Aftermath, Cambridge, 1997; British Czech and Slovak Review, no. 44 (August to September 1998), 9.

'Dr. Edvard Beneš: A reappraisal of Czechoslovak foreign policy, 1934-48', Masaryk Journal, vol. 2, no. 1 (October 1998), 108-110.

Book Review: J. Rychlík, T. D. Marzik & M. Bielik (eds.), R. W. Seton-Watson and his Relations with the Czechs and Slovaks, Documents, 1906-1951, two volumes, Prague & Martin, 1995; Masaryk Journal, vol. 1, no. 1 (November 1997), 47.

Conferences, Presentations and Proceedings

Paper to be given at the symposium The Ties That Bind , organised by the Czech Embassy in cooperation with the University College London and the Embassies of Poland and Slovakia. Madeleine Albright will be the keynote speaker at this symposium to mark the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the Czechoslovak government in exile, to be held in September 2010.

Paper given at the international conference The Changing Landscape of East-Central Europe in Transnational Context, c1700-1989 , organised by the British, Czech and Slovak Historians’ Forum (BCSHF) and the Modern European History Research Centre (MEHRC), University of Oxford. Oxford University, 24- 26 September 2009.

Paper given at the conference Britain and the End of the Cold War , organised by Centre for Contemporary British History, University of London, 23-25 June 2009.

Paper given at The Tenth Annual Czech Studies Workshop, Columbia University, New York, 29 April -3 May 2009.

Paper given at the international conference marking the 70th anniversary of the Munich Agreement in 1938, on the subject of Exile in and from Czechoslovakia during the 1930s and 1940s, organised by the University of London, The Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies 17 -19 September 2008.

Paper given at the international conference on Overcoming the Iron Curtain. Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945-1990, organised by The Sorbonne, Paris, 12-14 June 2008.

Paper given at the international conference on Resistance, Rebellion and Revolution in Central Europe: Commemorating 1956; organised by the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, 21-22 September 2006.

Paper given at the international conference on One hundred years of Sudeten German National Movements, organised by the History Department at the University of Oldenburg, Germany, 1-4 June 2005.

Paper given at the international conference on Czech-Slovak-Polish relations, 1938-1989, organised by the Institute of Contemporary History, Czech Republic, and the Historical Institute, University of Wroclaw, Poland, 4–5 November 2004.

Panel member at an event marking the 60th Anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising, at the Embassy of the Slovak Republic, 30 September 2004.

Lecture for the British-Czech-Slovak Historians' Forum, Round-Table Discussion, Political Ideologies in Czechoslovakia, at the Embassy of the Czech Republic, London, 24 November 2001.

Professional Activities

Member of the Steering Committee of the British-Czech-Slovak Historians' Forum (convened by Professors Mark Cornwall, Robert Evans and Robert Pynsent).
British-Czech-Slovak Historians' Forum

Member of the Institute of Historical Research.
Institute of Historical Research

Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (F.R.Hist.S.).
Royal Historical Society

Member of The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House).
The Royal Institute of International Affairs

Member of the Study Group on Intelligence (convened by Professors C. Andrew, M. R. D. Foot, and D. Cameron Watt).

Ambassadorial and departmental briefings for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Whitehall, and at the British Embassy in Prague on issues related to the Czech Republic, 1999 to present. As well as work with the Czech Embassy in London and the European Parliament

Media Appearances

Andrej Matišák, Svet o TGM vela nevie. Jeho kvality by sa mu však hodili,Pravda, 6 March 2010.

Interview: David Vaughan, 'Martin Brown: a post-Cold War perspective on the wartime Czechoslovak government in London',Ceský rozhlas 7, 23 November 2008.

Interview: Veronika Dospelova on the Czech television channel, CT24, broadcast on Tuesday 11 November 2008.

Interview: Stanislav Mundil, Czech News Agency,(CTK - Ceská tisková kancelár) : 'Odsuny Nemcu naplánovali Britové ' Lidové noviny, 31 October 2008.

Interview: Tomáš Mrva, ‘James Bond at the centre of British Myth: A discussion with Martin D. Brown’, Echo magazine, (January 2007), 18-21.

Interviewee for radio program ‘Talking Point’, entitled, ‘Expulsion of Czech Germans: Bitter memories and disrupted relations’, broadcast on Ceský rozhlas 7 [Czech radio station 7], 9 May 2005.

Expert interviewee on a ten-part Czech radio documentary ‘Atentát na Reinharda Heydricha’ [The assassination of Reinhard Heydrich], broadcast on Ceský rozhlas 3 [Czech radio station 3], May 2005.

Appearance on Czech television, state channel CT 2, in the award winning documentary ‘Zlatý Poklad RCS [Golden treasure]’, broadcast on 26 March 2000. Awarded a special diploma at Techfilm 2000 at the 38th International festival of films about science, technology and arts in Hradec Králove.

Various interviews for the Czech News Agency (CTK - Ceská tisková kancelár) and Radio Prague.

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Dr Martin Brown