THE PANEL
Rana Mitter is the chair in US-Asia relations at the Harvard Kennedy School
Thomas Otte is an expert in diplomatic, international and military history at the University of East Anglia
Hannah Skoda is a fellow at St John's College, University of Oxford, focusing on the social and cultural history of the high and later Middle Ages
Matt Elton The Israel-Gaza war is dominating the news at the moment, but rather than exploring its roots, I wanted to discuss other examples of seemingly intractable conflicts and how they come to an end. What examples from your research would you like to highlight?
Rana Mitter Firstly, we would all hope for a resolution of these conflicts, in the Middle East and elsewhere. What history allows us to do is to look at the longer perspective and understand that sometimes conflicts that have gone on for years or even decades can eventually be resolved, and that sometimes it's external factors and sometimes it's internal factors that enable that to happen.
As a historian of modern China, I can offer two examples that provide a contrast. One is the
