Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

From the two faces of free trade to the history crisis as a national security problem, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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The Two Faces of Free Trade

Dani Rodrik
Project Syndicate

Few terms in economics are as ideologically loaded as “free trade.” Advocate it nowadays, and you are likely to be regarded as an apologist for plutocrats, financiers, and footloose corporations. Defend open economic borders, and you will be labeled naive or, worse, a stooge of the Communist Party of China who cares little about human rights or the fate of ordinary workers at home.

As with all caricatures, there is a grain of truth in the anti-trade stance. Growing trade did contribute to rising inequality and the erosion of the middle class in the United States and other advanced economies in recent decades. If free trade got a bad name, that is because globalization’s boosters ignored its downsides or acted as if nothing could be done about them. This blind spot empowered demagogues like Donald Trump to weaponize trade and demonize racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and economic rivals. [continue reading]

The New Boy: Cate Blanchett film tackles faith and colonialism in Australia

Tiffanie Turnbull
BBC News

It would take a remarkable acting performance to rival Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett on screen. But that’s exactly what untried child prodigy Aswan Reid has done in her latest movie, critics say. Barely 11 years old when The New Boy was shot in the dusty South Australian outback in 2022, Reid’s audition was the very first tape the film’s creators looked at.

“He’s absolutely magnetic. We were so lucky to find him,” Blanchett tells the BBC’s Today programme. “[He’s] a Kiwirrkurra boy from the border of the Northern Territory and Western Australia – who had not only never been off Country, he’d never been on a film set. But yet, he learnt more in two days about the film industry than I’d learnt in almost 30 years.” Variety calls Reid the film’s “secret weapon” while The Guardian wrote that he “delivers Australian cinema’s most impressive child performance for some time” – an assessment rubberstamped last month, when he took home the prize for Best Lead Actor at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards. [continue reading]

How the Left Fell in and Out of Love With Free Trade

Lise Butler
Jacobin

In November and December of 1999, at least forty thousand protestors descended on downtown Seattle to protest the World Trade Organization (WTO) conference. Some dressed as or brandished images of sea turtles, which symbolized the WTO’s overturning of environmental regulations against trawling. Alongside them marched representatives of the steelworkers’ unions, who protested the dumping of low-cost steel on United States markets. Also present were consumer groups opposing a WTO ruling that prevented Europe from restricting the import of hormone-treated beef. Green activists, blue-collar workers, and consumer advocates formed an eclectic alliance furious at the impact of the WTO’s enforcement of free trade on the environment and workers’ rights.

Over the course of several days, the “Battle of Seattle” shut down the city’s downtown core. Police, unprepared for the scale of the demonstrations, responded with tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades. WTO delegates couldn’t leave their hotel rooms, and opening ceremonies for the conference were postponed. Seattle mayor Paul Schell declared a state of emergency; Washington governor Gary Locke called in the national guard; trade talks collapsed. [continue reading]

The chilling sound that signalled death for IRA ‘informers’

Peter Taylor
BBC News

Of all the sounds that still echo in my memory from 50 years of covering the conflict in Northern Ireland, one above all still haunts me. It’s not the sound of bombs and bullets but the banging of a pan. On recordings made by the IRA’s notorious Internal Security Unit (ISU), that noise was the signal for suspected informers to begin confessing they had been working for the “Brits”. The tapes were delivered to families as alleged proof of their betrayal. The penalty for the informers was – as Martin McGuinness, the IRA leader at the time, told me – “death, certainly”.

These chilling recordings are crucial evidence in a seven-year police investigation known as Operation Kenova. Its interim findings will be published later this week. Kenova’s focus is the activities of the British agent codenamed “Stakeknife” – real name Freddie Scappaticci – the army’s most highly placed source at the top of the IRA. [continue reading]

The History Crisis Is a National Security Problem

Bret Devereaux
Foreign Policy

The United States is rapidly shedding historians—and the national security implications are dire. Even as it grapples with challenges and conflicts rooted in complicated regional histories, the United States continues a decade-and-a-half-long path of defunding history departments and deprioritizing history education. This threatens to produce a generation of policymakers and advisors whose view of the world is increasingly, and dangerously, shallow.

History is in an unprecedented crisis. Battered by budget cuts and a refusal to replace retiring historians, university history departments are now rapidly shrinking; a 2022 study of Midwestern history departments found that the number of permanent departmental faculty had declined by nearly a third since 2010. That decline continues to accelerate as university hiring of historians remains stuck at levels well below what is necessary to replace retirements. [continue reading]