The Hidden Weapon. Blockade in the Era of the Two World Wars

BLOCKADE aims to analyze the impact of blockades on the world wars' outcomes and aftermath, integrating diverse disciplines to uncover their societal effects and historical significance.

Subsidie
€ 9.881.766
2025

Projectdetails

Introduction

The main aim of BLOCKADE is to investigate how blockades shaped the course, outcome, and aftermath of the world wars. In both wars, belligerents sought to blockade their enemies, cutting them off from vital resources such as food, oil, information, and capital to hasten their defeat. Existing research is contradictory and fragmentary, leaving us in the dark as to the scope and the effects of blockades, just as the world is confronted with new blockades.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis is that understanding the blockades is critical to the era of the world wars (ca. 1900-1960). The blockades affected societies the world over, testing their resilience and vulnerability.

Effects of Blockades

They produced new forms of violence and humanitarian care, prompted innovation and learning, and had integrative and disintegrative effects on wartime societies, alliances, and the world order.

Project Approach

The project’s ambitious approach transcends the traditional fixation on western Europe and integrates actors long seen as ‘peripheral’. It connects the disparate histories of the First and Second World Wars in a single explanatory frame by uncovering the shared generational experiences and learning processes related to blockades. This allows us to assess their impact on the wars and the peace that followed them.

Risks and Mitigation

The high gain promised by this project comes with the high risk that we might fail to separate the impact of blockades from other effects of warfare; but it is a risk we believe we can mitigate via innovative methodology and careful source analysis.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration

BLOCKADE requires input from a range of academic disciplines, including:

  1. Economics and economic history
  2. International history
  3. Cultural and war studies
  4. Statistical and digital analysis
  5. Many languages

Only the synergy resulting from combining the four PIs and the larger team’s different qualifications and research methodologies will realize the potential for high scientific gains with the necessary complexity and range.

Financiële details & Tijdlijn

Financiële details

Subsidiebedrag€ 9.881.766
Totale projectbegroting€ 9.881.766

Tijdlijn

Startdatum1-5-2025
Einddatum30-4-2031
Subsidiejaar2025

Partners & Locaties

Projectpartners

  • NORGES TEKNISK-NATURVITENSKAPELIGE UNIVERSITET NTNUpenvoerder
  • UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG
  • UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM
  • ALBERT-LUDWIGS-UNIVERSITAET FREIBURG

Land(en)

NorwayGermanyNetherlands

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