Shooting Tigers in Early 20th-Century India

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Bengal Tiger, Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM), Exeter.

Rajarshi Mitra
Indian Institute of Information Technology

During my trip to Exeter to attend the Britain and the World Conference earlier this year, I discovered that the Royal Bengal Tiger on display in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) was a gift from King George V (1865 – 1936). Exeter’s Bengal tiger was one of 39 tigers the King had killed during his hunting excursion in Nepalese Terai in 1911 – the year of his grand Coronation Durbar in India. The accompanying plaque states that the King presented tiger skins to British museums so that visitors who have never seen a tiger could meet one face-to-face. Like any responsible museum, RAMM’s curators have taken care to send a nuanced message through its natural history exhibits. They raise our environmental guilt, they remind us of nature’s destruction in the hands of man. Tiger hunts in India have a rich history of their own, and that Exeter has somehow been made part of that history had me intrigued.   Continue reading “Shooting Tigers in Early 20th-Century India” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

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fake miniature
A fake miniature depicting the preparation of medicines for the treatment of a patient suffering from smallpox, purportedly from the Canon of Medicine by Avicenna (980-1037). Allegedly in the Istanbul University Library. Photo by Getty.

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From the global ways of white supremacy to the Stalinist Truman Show, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history. Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History” →

The Weight of the Past in Franco-British Relations

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Elizabeth Thompson’s painting “The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras” depicts the North Gloucestershire Regiment battling French cavalry two days before the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. Rendered in 1875 it captures the power of Waterloo in British political and historical imagination.

How does one measure the influence that history has on contemporary affairs and issues? Is it possible to fashion some kind of litmus test, through which we can assess the impact that perceptions of the past have had on the conceptualisation of national and transnational policies? It is questions like these that the AHRC research project ‘The Weight of the Past in Franco-British Relations’ will explore over the next three years. Led by Professor Peter Jackson (University of Glasgow) alongside co-investigators Dr Rachel Utley (University of Leeds) and Dr Rogelia Pastor-Castro (Strathclyde University) and post-doctoral research assistant Dr Rachel Chin (University of Glasgow), this project will assess the role that representations of the past have played in Franco-British relations since 1815. More specifically, it will seek to understand how history, or at least subjective constructions of history, has shaped policy debates in general and prospects for Franco-British co-operation in particular. Continue reading “The Weight of the Past in Franco-British Relations” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH ExeterLeave a comment
The Ryukyuan music parade or rojigaku consisted of fifteen or twenty musicians and was directed by a Japanese official called gieisei. In addition to performing when the mission reached or left an important destination, the musicians accompanied the parade of envoys along the streets of Edo, playing Chinese and Ryukyuan songs. Via Asia-Pacific Journal.

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From linking the Irish Revolution and the First World War to today’s lessons from the Warsaw ghetto, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From globalizing ‘Gym Crow’ to the untold story of American isolationism, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history. Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment
The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) condemned the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, but the issue would eventually cause a split. Pictured is then CPA official Bernie Taft addressing listeners at Yarra Bank in Melbourne, c1960s. The University of Melbourne Archive’s new Bernie Taft Collection is one of the most significant resources on the history of the Australian left to become available in recent years. Picture: University of Melbourne Archives, Communist Party of Australia collection, 1991.0152.00099

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From black radicalism’s complex relationship with the Japanese Empire to how Soviet tanks shook up the Australian Left, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history. Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History” →

Call for Editors – Journal of Global History

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Professor William Gervase Clarence Smith, Professor Barbara Watson Andaya, and Professor Merry Wiesner-Hanks will shortly be coming to the end of their tenure as editors of the Journal of Global History (JGH). Cambridge University Press, in collaboration with an Editorial Board search committee, is now inviting applications for their successor(s).

The deadline for applications is 30 September, 2018.

JGH addresses the main problems of global change over time, together with the diverse histories of globalization. It also examines counter-currents to globalization, including those that have structured other spatial units. The journal seeks to transcend the dichotomy between ‘the West and the rest’, straddle traditional regional boundaries, relate material to cultural and political history, and overcome thematic fragmentation in historiography. The journal also acts as a forum for interdisciplinary conversations across a wide variety of social and natural sciences. Continue reading “Call for Editors – Journal of Global History” →