Free Course: ‘Empire – the Controversies of British Imperialism’

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Exeter’s Centre for Imperial and Global History is once again launching its free online course, which starts this week.

The British Empire was the largest empire ever seen. It ruled over a quarter of the world’s population and paved the way for today’s global economy. But British imperialism isn’t without controversy, and it continues to cause enormous disagreement among historians today. This free online course will help you understand why.

Over six weeks, we’ll explore the British Empire through six themes – money, violence, race, religion, gender and sex, and propaganda. You’ll get to hear the stories of the fascinating individuals who contributed to both its rise and fall. Continue reading “Free Course: ‘Empire – the Controversies of British Imperialism’” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment
The cover art for Sue in Tibet shows a smiling girl, poised for adventure
The cover art for Sue in Tibet shows a smiling girl, poised for adventure, William Arthur Smith.

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

From rediscovering Tibetan children’s novels to Stalin’s growing popularity, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history. Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History” →

Planning for the Referendum and After: Lessons from 1975

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment

1975 referendum

David Thackeray
University of Exeter

Cross-posted from History & Policy

Forty-one years ago this month, James Callaghan finalised the renegotiation of Britain’s EEC membership at a Dublin meeting of the European Council. At the subsequent referendum the results were emphatic. The UK voted ‘yes’ to remaining in the EEC, the forerunner of today’s EU, by a two to one margin. Now with the EU referendum date set, this article considers the key differences between the 1975 and 2016 votes and the lessons of the 1975 renegotiation for policy-makers planning for the vote and its aftermath. Continue reading “Planning for the Referendum and After: Lessons from 1975” →

Graveyard of Empires? Writing the Global History of Development in Cold War Afghanistan

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Nunan, Humanitarian Invasion (Book Cover)

Timothy Nunan
Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies
Follow on Twitter @timothynunan

How did Afghanistan in 2016 end up, yet again, as the graveyard of empires? Not only do Taliban franchises control much of the countryside outside of Kabul, but the start-up Islamic State battles them for influence. Tens of billion of dollars of aid have gone missing. Many Afghans are voting with their feet, forming one of the largest refugee diasporas in the world (a title they held until the Syrian Civil War).

Yet as my recent book, Humanitarian Invasion: Global Development in Cold War Afghanistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) shows, tortured attempts to develop Afghanistan have a long history. Sure, events like the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-1842) have left a deep imprint on how outsiders view the place. But for much of the twentieth century, neutral Afghanistan wasn’t at war with any of the superpowers. And when the Soviets went into Afghanistan, they did not annex it into some “Soviet empire.” The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was a dues-paying member of the U.N. General Assembly, and Kabul played host to international conferences touting the regime’s solidarity with the Third World. Continue reading “Graveyard of Empires? Writing the Global History of Development in Cold War Afghanistan” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter
Ibrahim Rauza
The Ibrahim Rauza complex, built by Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1580-1627). Photograph: Mukul Banerjee.

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

From what is global history to uncovering illegal documents of the slave trade, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history. Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History” →

Imagining Markets 3rd Workshop – Cambridge, 7 April

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Cross-posted from Imagining Markets

Below are the details of the 3rd workshop of the Imagining Markets network. The network brings together scholars working in the fields of Imperial, European, and Asian studies, and scholars from cultural studies and economic studies, which have become increasingly separated branches of enquiry calling for reintegration. Working with and through a range of public policy intermediaries including History and Policy, the Churchill Archives Centre, and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies this project will provide policy-makers with an inter-disciplinary analysis of the long-term development of British overseas trade, which in turn will illuminate the diversity of cultural values and political perspectives that have, and continue to be, brought to bear in growing exports to key markets. There are still a handful of places available. If you wish to attend, please email Dr. David Thackeray. Continue reading “Imagining Markets 3rd Workshop – Cambridge, 7 April” →

The Historians’ Group of the Communist Party – Ten Years that Reshaped History

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In late 1946 a group of historians, friends and members of the Communist Party started regularly meeting in Marx’s House in London, picture here.
In late 1946 the Historians’ Group – made up of historians, friends, and members of the Communist Party – started regularly meeting in Marx’s House in London, pictured here.

Gil Shohat
Humboldt University Berlin

In today’s history cosmos, terms such as ‘History from Below’, ‘People’s History’ and ‘Social History’ belong to the essential canon of most academics and students. Thus, it is important to remember how these terms found their way into historiography before they were considered legitimate. Members of the Communist Party Historians’ Group in the UK laid the cornerstone for a new paradigm in historiography, today largely referred to as Social History, in the late 1940s and early 1950s. But exactly how did these historians perceive their own role as academic insurgents in the heart of ‘Whig history’ and what were the problems facing them as historians and members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB)? Continue reading “The Historians’ Group of the Communist Party – Ten Years that Reshaped History” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter2 Comments
Lisbon 1975 2
Street scene, Lisbon 1975. Photo: Mieremet, Rob / Anefo, National Archives of the Netherlands / Anefo, licence CC-BY

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

From 1970s colonialism in Lisbon to saving digital archives, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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

Revisiting Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech 70 Years After

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment

1946_Churchill's-'Iron-Curtain'-speech

Richard Toye
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @RichardToye

The 5th of March marks the seventieth anniversary of Winston Churchill’s speech in Fulton, Missouri, in which he declared that an ‘iron curtain’ had descended across Europe. Delivered in the presence of US President Harry Truman, who had been instrumental in securing the former Prime Minister his invitation to speak, the address is well known as a landmark in the onset of the Cold War. Yet it is rarely considered in its full historical context. For the speech – formally entitled ‘The Sinews of Peace’ – was not merely a criticism of Russia. It was the means by which Churchill publicly enunciated his vision for a new world order. Continue reading “Revisiting Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech 70 Years After” →

The “Conspiracy” of Free Trade

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Book cover

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

Living as we do in an era where many of the world’s political elites commonly support free trade initiatives, it is perhaps difficult to imagine that the global economy looked very different in the late 19th century. Aside from the notable case of Free Trade England, most nations in the latter half of the 19th century sought safety from the gales of modern global market competition behind ever higher tariff walls, buttressed with government subsidies to domestic industries and imperial expansion. The United States was the exemplar of this global turn to economic nationalism and empire.

In the wake of the Second World War, the United States would become the leading proponent of free trade. But for nearly a century before, American foreign trade policy was dominated by extreme economic nationalism. What brought about this pronounced ideological, political, and economic about face? How did it affect Anglo-American imperialism? What were the repercussions for the global capitalist order? In answering these questions, my new book, The “Conspiracy” of Free Trade (Cambridge University Press, 2016), offers the first detailed account of the controversial Anglo-American struggle over empire and economic globalization in the mid to late 19th century. Continue reading “The “Conspiracy” of Free Trade” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment
From the New York Public Library's digital posters. Via Open Culture.
From the New York Public Library’s digital posters. Via Open Culture.

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

From being black in the USSR to the Revenant‘s justification of settler colonialism, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history. Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History” →

What Was Distinctive About the Eighteenth-Century Local Press?

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print

Richard Toye
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @RichardToye

In today’s world, news is everywhere: news communicated by the press, by other media bodies, and increasingly by anyone who wants to share something with the world via Facebook or Twitter, or via a blog like this one! In this new series of podcasts, based around our Third Year undergraduate module on News, Media, and Communication (HIH 3617) Exeter academics will examine how different societies transmit and receive information. The relationship between oral, visual, and written modes of communication, and the impact of technological advances upon news and the media will be examined, as will debates about the role of the media within societies.

What was the relationship between news, media, and state power; and between money, power, and the press? How did the media influence the conduct of war? What impact did the invention of printing, or of television, have on the communication of news, and how did the new technologies interact with social and cultural assumptions to shape what was considered to be ‘news’?

In this video, Professor Jeremy Black and Professor Richard Toye discuss the role of the local and regional press in Britain.

Call For Papers: Embassies in Crisis

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Screen Shot 2016-02-21 at 12.21.01BIHG logoEmbassies in Crisis

British Academy, 9 June 2016

Call for Papers

This one-day conference will combine academic papers with a seminar session at which serving and former Embassy staff will be invited to present their testimonies and perspectives. The intention is to present a summary of the conference findings to the FCO to help inform future thinking in this area. The event will be held at the British Academy, 9 June 2016.

Embassies have long been integral to international diplomacy, their staff instrumental to inter-governmental dialogue, strategic partnerships, trading relationships and cultural exchange. But Embassies are also discrete political spaces. Notionally sovereign territory ‘immune’ from local jurisdiction, in moments of crisis Embassies have often been targets of protest and sites of confrontation. Embassies in Crisis will revisit flashpoints in the lives of Embassies overseas. Approaching Embassies as distinct communities with their own micro-histories, this conference seeks to explore each of these aspects in the lives of Embassies and the people who run them. Papers are welcomed that discuss instances of international confrontation or mass demonstration, past and present, that placed particular Embassies in the global spotlight. Continue reading “Call For Papers: Embassies in Crisis” →

This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History

Published on by CIGH Exeter1 Comment

atomic bomb

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

From the psychology of empire to independence-era African funk, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history. Continue reading “This Week’s Top Picks in Imperial & Global History” →

Trump’s anti-trade tirades recall GOP’s protectionist past

Published on by CIGH Exeter5 Comments

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

Cross-posted from the Conversation

As Donald Trump continues his quest for the Republican nomination, free trade agreements remain in his crosshairs.

The billionaire has been making waves by opposing American free trade initiatives like the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – just signed earlier this month by ministers of the 12 Pacific Rim member nations – and even the 21-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As Trump put it in November, right now “free trade’s no good” for the United States.

It may sound strange for the leading GOP candidate for president to be bad-mouthing free trade, but this is a protectionist sentiment that more and more Republicans appear to be warming up to.

It’s also a protectionist sentiment that’s drawn from the party’s paranoid past, as I’ve explored in my new book on Anglo-American trade. Continue reading “Trump’s anti-trade tirades recall GOP’s protectionist past” →