Acknowledgments
The present study is based on my doctoral thesis, submitted and accepted at the Justus Liebig University, Gießen, in March 2013. The German edition was published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg in 2015 as Die Bewegung Bündnisfreier Staaten. Genese, Organisation und Politik, 1927–1992. I have revised the manuscript and brought it into line with the state of research as at summer 2017 for the English version.
This book would have got nowhere without support from many quarters. My thanks go first of all to Dirk van Laak for his helpful and straightforward supervision and for many years of outstanding collegial collaboration. I have learnt a great deal from his intellectual curiosity and astute observations over the last ten years. He has always encouraged me to look deeper, formulate my own ideas and trust my own arguments. I thank Eckart Conze for his erudite appraisal of my thesis and I am grateful both to him and to the editors of the “Studies in International History” (Studien zur internationalen Geschichte) series for their constructive comments during revision of the German manuscript and for including it in the series.
Many other individuals have taken the time to discuss my ideas and arguments with me. I would like to express my gratitude to the members of the International Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture (gcsc) in Gießen, everyone involved in the symposia of Ulrich Herbert and Patrick Wagner and the Gießen-Marburg Doctoral Symposium, as well as the directors and staff of the German Historical Institutes in London (Andreas Gestrich), Moscow (Victor Dönninghaus) and Washington D.C. (Hartmut Berghoff and Simone Lässig).
Nada Boškovska, Frank Bösch, Sandra Bott, Emmanuel Droit, Annika Estner, Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Bernhard Gißibl, Jussi M. Hanhimäki, Jan Hansen, Peter Hoeres, Darwis Khudori, David Kuchenbuch, Sönke Kunkel, Isabella Löhr, Christoph Meyer, Nataša Mišković, Frank Reichherzer, Janick M. Schaufenbuehl, Arvid Schors, Naoko Shimazu, Suzan Stutz, Harald Fischer-Tiné, Marco Wyss and Rubina Zern gave me the opportunity to present my ideas at workshops and conferences. I also profited from conversations with Jovan Čavoški, Amit Das Gupta, Jan Jansen, and Dane Kennedy and – during my archival research in Washington D.C. – from discussions at the Woodrow Wilson Center and at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. I am indebted to Naoko Shimazu and Jan Eckel for lengthy conversations from which I benefited greatly. Special thanks go to Nataša Mišković for inspiring new thoughts on a number of areas and for practical advice on archival research.
I also owe a debt of gratitude to my colleagues in Gießen. The pleasant, collegial and constructive working atmosphere at the chair of Dirk van Laak did much to foster the writing of the present study. My doctoral studies in Gießen will always be a source of fond memories.
Hubertus Büschel, Christian Diem, Florian Greiner, Peter Hoeres, Jan Jansen, Daniel Maul, Vadim Popov, Konstantin Rometsch, Christian Schwöbel and Michael Schellenberger read sections of the manuscript while Elisa Engert and Florian Hannig tackled the whole thing. My thanks to all of them for their many comments both lengthy and brief. As I completed the dissertation I was fortunate enough to be able to rely on the valuable support of Michael Schellenberger whenever something came up. Florian Hannig, meanwhile, was not only the colleague most closely involved in the genesis of the present work but made his contribution over the longest period of time. I am grateful to him for countless encouraging and insightful conversations. The present study owes a great deal to his curiosity, critique and advice.
This book could not have been written without the financial support of the Justus Liebig University, the German Historical Institutes in Moscow, London and Washington D.C., and the dfg. The fazit-Stiftung and the Geschwister Boehringer Ingelheim Stiftung generously facilitated its publication in German by helping cover the printing costs. My thanks also go to Rabea Rittgerodt at de Gruyter for smoothing the original German edition’s path to publication. Through the Geisteswissenschaften International Translation Funding for Work in the Humanities and Social Sciences programme the German Publishers & Booksellers Association (Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels), the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the German Foreign Office, and VG Wort supported and funded the book’s translation into English. I’m grateful to Daniel Maul and Bernd Greiner for their straightforward and knowledgeable assistance as I set about applying for the Translation Grant. My thanks also to Alex Skinner for his translation of the manuscript, flawless professionalism and outstandingly constructive approach.
The two reviewers of the English text helped me hone my core arguments, while Jason Prevost and Gerda Danielsson Coe of Brill ensured that the publication process has been easy sailing. I thank Jussi M. Hanhimäki and Marco Wyss for supporting my application for the translation prize and, as editors, for incorporating this book into the “New Perspectives on the Cold War” series.
Finally, I owe my family a special debt of gratitude. They have always supported me and have been a tremendous source of confidence and strength. Thanks for being there!