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From the Archive: America Abroad, 1891-1907

Our exciting new collection, Transatlantic Civil Society in Periodicals, 1767-1925, explores the evolving relationship between North America and Europe over three centuries. A period that encompasses the conflict of the American revolutionary era through to changes wrought by industrialisation and... Read more →

Published 23rd November, 2020

History and identity: tracing the legacy of colonial history in modern French identity

In contemporary political debate, memories of empire have a potent appeal. The spectre of empire holds a certain allure, promising power, glory and greatness. Particularly affected by this have been the old colonial giants of Europe, including France. In this... Read more →

Published 23rd October, 2020

Aid in Africa: hurting or helping?

The idea of aid took off in the 1920s/30s, when wealthier countries started to make regular donations to places including Latin America and Africa. Before this, there had been some sporadic donations in the 19th Century, but nothing as structured... Read more →

Published 8th October, 2020

Miracle of Chile? The legacy of the Chicago Boys

Chile is often hailed as the ‘Miracle of Chile’ and is compared to the Asian Tiger economies, which boasted rapid economic growth between the 1960s and 1990s, paired with a huge improvement in the standard of living. Even today, it... Read more →

Published 26th August, 2020

Assessing Soviet nationality policy: a state vested with the power to define, build and destroy nations

 Assessing Soviet nationality policy: a state vested with the power to define, build and destroy nations The concept of nations and nationalism within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was complex. The face of ‘Soviet nationality policy’ (SNP) shifted and... Read more →

Published 18th August, 2020

From the Archive: The Paris Peace Conference and Upper Silesia

Our popular primary source collection, 'Paris Peace Conference and Beyond, 1919-1939', provides a wealth of archival material relating to the tumultuous period in the aftermath of the First World War. The Paris Peace Conference was the formal meeting of the... Read more →

Published 7th August, 2020

History in society – Reassessing the relevance of public monuments in the 21st century

Last weekend a statue of Edward Colston, a prominent slave trader, was torn down in Bristol during an anti-racism protest. The statue had been a source of controversy in the city for a long time and after years of fruitless... Read more →

Published 9th June, 2020

Dispatches from the COIN Wars: a post-revisionist appraisal of American strategy in the Vietnam War

During the early stages of American combat operations in South Vietnam, the eminent social-historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr issued a stark warning to those in the corridors of power. Unless steps were taken to de-escalate US participation in what was essentially... Read more →

Published 2nd September, 2019

In Conversation With...Stephen M. Walt

Stephen M. Walt is a distinguished academic who writes about international relations theory, grand strategy, and American foreign policy. He obtained a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied under the late Kenneth Waltz, a... Read more →

Published 5th August, 2019

Stranger Things, Nostalgia and Unintentional Meaning

THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS You've got to hand it to the producers of Stranger Things for using the same deus ex machina to solve the same problem three series in a row. At least this time around there was something of a... Read more →

Published 26th July, 2019

The Radical Romanticism of Piracy

In Western popular culture, pirates have emerged as dashing heroic figures.Despite the fact that, on the periphery, most people are vaguely aware that there is a profound disconnect between the realities of piracy and the popular fantasy, we choose to... Read more →

Published 10th July, 2019

Star Trek, the Politburo, and the Power of Irony

Back in June of 1987, as the Cold War was winding down, the World Wildlife Fund and Paramount Pictures organised a public screening of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in Moscow to celebrate the Politburo’s recent decision to ban... Read more →

Published 8th May, 2019

Interpreting the Unthinkable

In September 2018 the UK’s newest Holocaust exhibition opened to the public. ‘Though Our Eyes’ tells the story of the Holocaust as experienced by 16 Jewish men and women who escaped or survived the genocide and made new lives in the... Read more →

Published 17th April, 2019

In Conversation With...Andrew J. Bacevich

Andrew J. Bacevich is an historian and commentator who writes about American foreign and defence policy.He graduated from West Point in 1969 and served in the United States Army for two decades, including stints in Vietnam and Kuwait. After leaving... Read more →

Published 10th April, 2019

Why the Cold War Ended

The end of the Cold War was surprising and profound in equal measure. In late 1988, everything was, relatively speaking, the same as it had always been: students of International Relations were avidly dissecting the latest texts by Kenneth Waltz... Read more →

Published 19th February, 2019

The Bomber Always Gets Through? Airpower Theory and the Second World War

“We fly, but we have not ‘conquered’ the air” — Beryl Markham Much to the consternation of modern-day strategists, the first generation of aviation specialists were indifferent to academic convention. In the years following the Wright brothers’ first powered flight... Read more →

Published 22nd January, 2019

Thomas Schelling and the Diplomacy of Violence

Thomas Schelling originally worked in the field of economics, focussing on international political economy, trade policy, and tariffs. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was associated with the RAND Corporation and its leading lights, including Herman Kahn, Bernard Brodie, and... Read more →

Published 11th December, 2018

MAD Men

A lot happened in 1967. Israel went to war with Syria, Egypt, and Jordan for a grand total of six days; the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and United States ratified a treaty banning the placement of nuclear weapons in outer... Read more →

Published 19th October, 2018

The Problem with Apollo

The American ‘moonshot’ is arguably one of the most memorable moments of the Cold War, if not the 20th century. It captured the world’s attention with record global viewing figures on live television and cemented the success of America’s military-industrial-scientific... Read more →

Published 15th October, 2018

Soviet Military Doctrine, the Winter War, and Operation Barbarossa: A (Partial) Exercise in Counterfactual History

“Even bees have venom—how much the more do nations. If you are unprepared, even if there are many of you, mere numbers cannot be counted on.” —Zhuge Liang During the 1930s, the principal goal of Soviet foreign policy was to... Read more →

Published 24th September, 2018

Channel Islander Victims of Nazi Persecution: A Legitimate Heritage?

A casual stroll through any village or town in France will reveal memorials to those who died in concentration camps. Examine any war memorial and alongside those who died on the battlefield are lists of the glorieux martyrs de la... Read more →

Published 16th August, 2018

The Fashionable Form of Holocaust Denial

What do Holocaust deniers deny? The most extreme among them deny that the Nazis’ the extermination of the Jews ever happened—or, if some portion of it did take place, the Jews were behind it. These include such notorious figures as... Read more →

Published 9th August, 2018

The Politics of the World Cup

It was a magnificent finale to a tense group stage encounter. Standing at five and a half feet, Xherdan Shaqiri’s run wasn’t graceful, but with legs pumping like pistons, the Switzerland midfielder surged past the defender and stuck the ball... Read more →

Published 16th July, 2018

Behind Enemy Lines: The Life and Death of Diana Rowden

On July 6th, 1944, Diana Rowden, Andree Borrell, Vera Leigh, and Sonya Olschanezky were executed by the SS at Natzweiler-Struthof, a concentration camp located near the foothills of the Vosges Mountains in Alsace. They had been transferred from a prison... Read more →

Published 6th July, 2018

Pride in Perspective: Homosexuality in Britain Since 1967

In July 1967 the Sexual Offences Act decriminalized homosexual acts between men, making it legal between two men over 21 in private (though not in Scotland or Northern Ireland—those laws were finally abolished in 1980 and 1982 respectively).  This legislation... Read more →

Published 18th June, 2018

Britain and the Second World War: Identity and Remembrance

The anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day on 8th May marks the end of the war in Europe and Germany’s unconditional surrender to the Allies. As it coincides this year with the final year of centenary commemorations of the... Read more →

Published 8th May, 2018

VE Day Through the Eyes of East Prussian Refugees

"I did not know then that the 8th of May 1945 was a special day. Whatever happened in the world ‘outside’, did not apply to us. Here, everything revolved around food, the acquisition of food and sheer survival… We did... Read more →

Published 8th May, 2018

Women and Protest in 19th Century Britain

Does women’s history actually exist? If the lives and achievements of just over half of the population were fully acknowledged as a vital part of the human story then, by definition, it wouldn’t. The tendency to see women’s experiences as... Read more →

Published 5th April, 2018

The International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

25 March marks The International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, a moment to remember those who suffered under slavery and to reflect upon slavery’s legacy in contemporary society. Between 1526 and 1867,... Read more →

Published 21st March, 2018

Black History Month with British Online Archives

Black History Month is celebrated every February in the United States and Canada, as well as here in the United Kingdom in October. The idea started as a way of remembering significant people and events in African history. Black History... Read more →

Published 28th February, 2018