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The Role of Networks in the London Moment

The London Moment demonstrates how networks were central to the political thinking and practice of European exiles during the Second World War. London became a convergence point for a diverse array of actors – from exile governments and economic planners to legal experts and anticolonial activists. In a context of displacement and uncertainty, coordination and communication relied not on fixed institutional settings, but on dynamic, often informal networks of trust, expertise, and shared political purpose. These networks enabled the circulation of ideas, the articulation of joint positions, and the mobilisation of strategic responses to a disintegrating European order. Rather than passive structures, they were consciously cultivated as political resources – crucial for visibility, legitimacy, and continuity.

At the same time, the London Moment reveals the complexity of these transnational webs: they were marked by ideological tensions, competing priorities, and uneven power relations. Networks were not neutral vessels of communication, but arenas of negotiation – binding together personal biographies and institutional visions, intellectual traditions and pragmatic necessities. They made space for mutual learning and institutional innovation, and allowed actors to imagine postwar futures across national, disciplinary, and colonial boundaries. In tracing these entangled connections, The London Moment offers not just a history of exiles, but a history of political possibility under the conditions of displacement.

Selected Publications:

For further reading on how networks shaped legal, political, and intellectual projects in exile, see selected publications from The London Moment team that engage explicitly with the role of transnational and interdisciplinary networks.

Julia Eichenberg

Recht als Ressource. Europäische Exilregierungen und die London International Assembly während des Zweiten Weltkriegs in London, in: Frank Klose / Alexander Schors (eds.), How to Write International History? Empirical Approaches to the 19th and 20th Century, Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 2023, pp. 243–264.

The London International Assembly, Exile Governments and War Crimes Prosecution: The Emergence of a Transnational Legal Order, in: Journal of the History of International Law, Volume 24, Issue 3, 2022, pp. 334–360.

Divided by war, united by welfare: the International Labour Organization promoting war invalids’ internationalism, gemeinsam mit N. Stegman, in: European Review of History: Revue européenne d’histoire, 29 (2022) 4, 590-613, DOI: 10.1080/13507486.2021.1979936.

Legal Legwork: How Exiled Jurists Negotiated Recognition and Legitimacy in Wartime London, in: Crafting the International Order. Practitioners and Practices of International Law since c. 1800. Hrsg. von M. Payk / K. Priemel, Oxford University Press: Oxford 2021, 162-190.

Macht auf der Flucht. Europäische Regierungen in London (1940–1944), in: ZHF, 15 (2018), 3, 452-473. [Open Access].

Simeon Marty

“We do not make a noise but we get things done”: The League of Coloured People’s campaign against racial discrimination in the British armed forces 1939, in: The London Moment, August 12, 2022. Retrieved May 5, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/onnf.

Harold Moody and the League of Coloured Peoples: interracial “harmony” and colonial critique, in: The London Moment, January 24, 2022. Retrieved May 4, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/onnb.

“Brotherhood between all persons of African descent”: The West African Students Union, from self-help group to colonial critique, in: The London Moment, February 22, 2021. Retrieved May 5, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/onmy.

The West African Students Union (WASU) and the London Moment, in: The London Moment, November 9, 2018. Retrieved May 5, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/onlk.

Sara Weydner

“Strangers without Gowns”: Academic Refugees, Evacuees, and Civil Servants in Oxford and Cambridge during the Second World War, in: The London Moment, December 9, 2020. Retrieved May 5, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/onmu.

Lea Levenhagen

The European League for Economic Cooperation and its founding fathers, in: The London Moment, February 2, 2023. Retrieved May 5, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/onnh.

Finlay McCracken

Mapping the London Moment, in: The London Moment, June 21, 2022. Retrieved May 5, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/onne


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
jackteague (June 29, 2025). The Role of Networks in the London Moment. The London Moment. Retrieved April 21, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/148h1


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