Baseline assignment 1

National history refers to the historical developments within a country which can include
economic, social and political issues within a specific country. International history on the
other hand refers to the study of relations between two or more countries politically,
socially, economically and culturally and how their relationship shaped the world. One
similarity that could be made between national and international history is that national
could be biased as it comes from someone within the country, but national history would be
less bias as it takes account from multiple people coming from different countries.

Additionally, another similarity that could be made between a national approach to history
compared to an international approach is that they both look at the development of at least
one country whether that’s in a political, economical or social perspective. However, the
difference is that national history only focuses on its own country while international looks
at multiple different countries and look at their relations as well as how they developed. If
we take in the Mexican Revolution to context, we can see that under President Diaz’s rule for
31 years Mexico had gone through a period of modernisation and economic expansion. By
taking a national approach to this, it could be said that Mexico was going through a period of
economic development, and this demonstrates how Mexico was starting to develop as a
strong and independent country. On the other hand, if we take an international approach, it
would be correct to say that foreign investment had increased. By 1910 U.S. investment to
Mexico had amounted to more than $1.5 billion. This relationship USA had with Mexico
would greatly affect the political, social and economic development of Mexico. Therefore, by
taking an international approach it is correct to say that without the input from USA, Mexico
would not have been able to develop as effectively.

Furthermore, if we take a national and international approach to the events of the cold war,
we can see the difference in perspective. On 25th February 1956, Khrushchev had a secret
speech where he announced destalinisation. When the people within Russia heard the
news, they were shocked and caused them to question the legitimacy of communist rule and
this had led to a student’s demonstration in favour of a multi-party democracy at Moscow
state university in 1957. Additionally, there were uprisings in Hungary, which was put down
by the soviet army, but the fact Khrushchev had to militarily intervene demonstrates how
there was chaos within Russia at the time as the people were outraged with the actions of
Stalin. However, if we take the international approach, we can look at it quite differently. As
we know, in the cold war there were increased tensions between USA and the USSR and
Stalin was a big problem for them, so the fact that USSR were getting rid of Stalinist may
have eased tensions for a brief time as the USA may have accepted the USSR were going
through a period of change under Khrushchev and things may be different. Therefore, by
taking in a national approach it may have been a bad thing for Khrushchev as it led to
increased uprisings but in an international approach, we can see it may have been a good
thing for Khrushchev as it may have allowed him to ease tensions with USA during the cold
war.
By looking at past events from an international perspective- this can enhance our
understanding of past events as we can see the effect foreign countries had to that country
as well as the effect the event had on their relations.