Category: Imperial & Global History

New Special Issue of Parliamentary History: Settler Colonialism and Parliamentary Democracy – Histories and Legacies

Published on by CIGH Exeter

David Thackeray
University of Exeter

Our new special issue of Parliamentary History, ‘Settler Colonialism and Parliamentary Democracy- Histories and Legacies’, co-edited by me and Amanda Behm, emerges at a time of acute public interest in the practices of settler democracy. In 2023 efforts to establish an ‘indigenous voice to parliament’ in Australia were defeated in a referendum but drew attention to a long history of contestation of the national constitution by indigenous peoples and their allies. In New Zealand ongoing efforts by the coalition’s minority partner to reform the legal status of the Treaty of Waitangi have been met by protests and claims of historical amnesia by opponents of the bill. The papers in this special issue seek to offer a better understanding of the practices which connected supporters and opponents of settler democracy across and beyond the British empire.

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Writing Population History in a Time of Planetary Crisis – Call for Papers

Published on by CIGH Exeter

2nd-3rd June 2025, University of Exeter

The present moment is suffused with demographic anxieties. Reaching the milestone of 8 billion people in the global population in 2022 has reinvigorated debate about the impact of a growing global population—particularly, though not exclusively, on planetary ecology; this in turn has renewed calls in some quarters for population control measures. At the same time, policymakers have expressed concern about aging populations and declining national birth rates or, in other locations, about the impact of so-called ‘youth bulges’ on security and labour. Meanwhile, actors on the far right have leant upon racialised narratives of migration and demographic change to mobilize support.

History has a particular place in current demographic debates. Natalia Kanem, the Executive Director of the UN Population Fund, has cautioned against ‘population alarmism,’ warning that historic population control measures have been ‘ineffective and even dangerous.’ This 2-day, hybrid workshop will explore the challenges and possibilities of writing population history at this current historical moment. How might population history-writing engage with contemporary demographic anxieties, and how might the concerns of our present moment shape the development of the scholarly field?

We are thrilled to welcome Professor Alison Bashford, Scientia Professor in History and Director of the Laureate Centre for History & Population at the University of New South Wales, as our keynote speaker.

We welcome papers that present traditional historical studies as well as more informal think-pieces on the relationship between the past and present of population, demographic anxiety, and ecological and political crises, including work related to activism in these sectors. We welcome participation from non-historians and non-academics. Student and early-career speakers who are SSHM members may be eligible for SSHM travel bursaries. Further details can be found at https://sshm.org/bursaries/.

Paper topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • Population control
  • Fertility and population decline
  • Ageing, youth and demographic profiles
  • Reproductive justice
  • Migration
  • Eugenics

Please submit an abstract of c.250 words to R.Williams2@Exeter.ac.uk by 25th March 2025. Decisions on submitted abstracts will be made by 2nd April.

CIGH Celebrates International Women’s Day

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Poster for Women’s Day, 8 March 1914. By Karl Maria Stadler.

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

In celebration of International Women’s Day, here are our top picks from the Imperial & Global Forum archives.

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This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter
erhui1979/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

From the reality of settler colonialism to the end of the postwar order, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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No, Trump’s Coercive Use of Tariffs Isn’t New

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

“Tariff Man” Trump continues to tear up the trading system while also making imperial demands for territorial expansion. To just about everyone’s surprise, his grand colonial scheme to “make America great again” now includes making Canada the 51st state – and using the threat of punitive tariffs to get what he wants.

Some, like the Washington Post‘s Max Boot, have been making the case that Trump’s coercive use of tariffs to obtain concessions “unrelated to trade” is “novel.”

But though Trump often cites 19th-century pro-tariff President William McKinley as his inspiration, Trump is using tariffs quite differently from the way that most other U.S. presidents — or other world leaders — have used them. Typically, tariffs are enacted either to raise revenue or to protect domestic industries from foreign competition. Trump, by contrast, is using tariffs as a coercive instrument of statecraft to achieve aims that are unrelated to trade.

Boot’s piece raises good points of comparison, including parallels with Chinese economic coercion today. And I agree that the results of Trump’s tariffs will likely be a net negative for the United States.

But I disagree that Trump’s coercive use of tariffs is new; rather, it’s straight out of the GOP’s old protectionist playbook.

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Introducing Dr. Chris Sandal-Wilson, Co-Director of the Centre for Imperial and Global History at Exeter

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Dr Chris Sandal-Wilson
Co-Director, CIGH, University of Exeter

Hello, I’m Dr Chris Sandal-Wilson, Co-Director of the Centre for Imperial and Global History alongside Dr Rebecca Williams. I’m a historian of medicine and particularly psychiatry, though I also teach and research the histories of British colonialism, the modern Middle East, and sexuality – and welcome opportunities to connect with students and scholars across these fields.

These interests were brought together in my first book, Mandatory Madness: Colonial Psychiatry and Mental Illness in British Mandate Palestine, which was published at the end of 2023 by Cambridge University Press. In the book, I was able to bring to light a rich but overlooked seam of archival material and sources in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, and provide a new perspective on how questions around mental illness mattered not simply in clinical spaces but in the courtroom, the prison, the census, and ultimately in the context of crisis and collapse, too. And I was honoured that my book was shortlisted and awarded an Honourable Mention for the biennial British Society for the History of Science 2024 Pickstone Prize, recognising outstanding books on the history of science, technology, and medicine.

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This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

From global Guyana to turning points in world history, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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Spring 2025 CIGH Seminar Schedule

Published on by CIGH Exeter

The co-directors of Exeter’s Centre for Imperial and Global History (CIGH), Dr. Chris Sandal-Wilson and Dr. Rebecca Williams are really excited to begin a new term of CIGH seminars.

Reminders, links, and abstracts will be sent a week in advance of each seminar to the CIGH mailing list. To be added, please email Chris and Beccy at c.w.sandal-wilson@exeter.ac.uk and r.williams2@exeter.ac.uk.

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The decline of “Imperial Federation” and the rise of the “British Commonwealth”

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Walter Crane, Imperial Federation: Map Showing the Extent of the British Empire in 1886. Published by Maclure & Co., 24 July 1886.

Chuanyou Zhou
University of Exeter

This post explores the significance of the fact that the decline of the phrase “Imperial Federation” in British imperial discourse coincided with its replacement by the term “British Commonwealth.”

The concept of Imperial Federation was a political idea that gained public attention in the 1870s and evolved into a political movement following the establishment of the Imperial Federation League in 1884. The movement sought to unify the empire in a federal structure and counteract tendencies toward separation.

An analysis of newspapers from 1910 to 1921, conducted using the Gale Primary Sources database, reveals that the term “British Commonwealth” was rarely used in the context of the empire before 1916. In contrast, the term “Imperial Federation” saw a marked decline in usage after 1910, showing an inverse relationship with the rise of “British Commonwealth.” This trend is clearly observable in both the Gale Primary Sources database and Google Books Ngram.

Consequently, a hypothesis emerges that the term “Imperial Federation” was gradually supplanted by “British Commonwealth,” a shift largely attributed to changes in the perception of the empire following the First World War.

Gale Primary Sources database
Google Books Ngram

A word frequency analysis from 1910 to 1921 reveals that the terms “imperial parliament,” “Dominions,” and “Ireland” appeared frequently during this period. This suggests that the decline in the rhetoric of Imperial Federation was largely driven by opposition from the Dominions and Ireland to the concept of an “imperial parliament”.

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This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Demonstrators protesting a treaty to return control of the Panama Canal to Panama, U.S. Capitol building, Washington, D.C, Sept. 7, 1977. Warren K Leffler—US News & World Report Magazine Collection/PhotoQuest/Getty Images

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

A US presidential inauguration special, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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Introducing Dr. Rebecca Williams, Co-Director of the Centre for Imperial and Global History at Exeter

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Rebecca Williams
Co-Director, CIGH, University of Exeter

Hello, I’m Dr. Rebecca Williams, Co-Director of the Centre for Imperial and Global History here at Exeter. I’m delighted to connect with scholars who are passionate about exploring the complex histories of medicine, health, and international development. My research focuses primarily on the history of health and medicine, particularly surrounding population, reproduction, and women’s health in modern South Asia, as well as the broader historical frameworks of international development that touch upon health, environmental concerns, and democracy.

Currently, I’m engaged in two significant research projects that shed light on these themes. My first project, which will result in a monograph tentatively titled Controlling Population, examines how India became the world’s test-case for state-led population control after independence. Through the Khanna Study—a pivotal family planning experiment in 1950s-60s Punjab—I explore why India became a laboratory for both transnational organizations and the Indian government’s ambitions in population control.

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Uncovering Uncomfortable Histories: The Legacy of Nazi Connections and Colonialism in International Development

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Exploring new avenues for cooperation between the German Institute for Economic Research (ifo) and the Portuguese colonial state: Pössinger’s travel route through Angola, 1963.

Andreas Stucki
University of Bern

Nearly eighty years after World War II, research into the connections between Nazism, colonialism, and international development remains an underexplored area despite considerable scholarship on the complex history of development after 1945. Continued involvement of colonial development experts and bureaucrats in African late colonial states highlights how German practitioners with Nazi ties moved into new roles in imperial and international development after the Second World War.

This begs the question: to what extent might Nazi ideologies and practices have shaped postwar global development efforts?

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New Archaeology and History PhD Funding Opportunities and Masterclasses

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Interested in pursuing a PhD in Archaeology or History at the University of Exeter?

Then be sure to check out these new funding opportunities and free masterclasses for writing a strong proposal.

AHRC South, West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership (SWWDTP)

  • This is for projects that fall within the Arts and Humanities, so appropriate for any student wanting to do a PhD in Archaeology or History
  • They are advertising up to 39 studentships this year: this includes up to 35 student-led and up to 4 Collaborative Doctoral Awards.
  • Students are expected to apply with supervisors drawn from two separate participating institutions (the other institutions are: Aberystwyth, Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museums Wales), Bath Spa, Bristol, Cardiff, Cranfield, Reading, Southampton, UWE). Any single-institution supervisions must be strongly justified and made clear that there are no reasonable alternatives within the DTP.
  • Applications will open on 25 November 2024 and close on 20 January 2025.
  • More details can be found here: https://www.sww-ahdtp.ac.uk/prospective-students/how-to-apply/
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This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter
‘Warrants a whole other documentary’: Patrice Lumumba’s adviser and speechwriter,Andrée Blouin, centre, from Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat. Photograph: Modern Films

Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter

From the Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat to how China joined the global capitalist economy, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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Ten million like Mobeen?

Published on by CIGH Exeter

Ghee Bowman
University of Exeter

Cross-posted from Force K-6

I recently watched a great documentary on Channel 4, called ‘The Soldiers that Saved Britain’, made by British journalist Mobeen Azhar.

Mobeen went on a mission to uncover his grandfather’s experience in the Second World War, visiting battlegrounds and archives.

It was fascinating to see his personal journey, struggling with the conundrum of why his grandfather volunteered to serve the colonial power.

As one of the advisors for the programme, I was glad that my research has helped to publicize the South Asian contribution and help people Mobeen to find the truth.

I am left with a big question: how many are there like Mobeen in the world?

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