International Relations

Relations across the UK, Europe and globally are frequently changing, and have done so across our history. How these relations are recorded, monitored and treated are discussed in the collection of articles and podcasts here. The very concept of international relations is explored as are when boundaries and discussions between states and groups started to matter. What are the procedures, protocols and outcomes of a world according to the history of international relations are all under scrutiny?

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  • Films: Khrushchev - Interpretations

    9th October 2024

    (Student and corporate secondary members can view these films in our Student Zone) Khrushchev came to power in the Soviet Union at a time when the whole region was used to living on a knife's edge. He appeared to usher in a more relaxed calm era as though that had...

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  • Film: Khrushchev - Background

    Article

    In this film, Dr Alexander Titov (Queen's University of Belfast), provides a profile of Khrushchev’s background and personality and how these influenced his politics and ideas. Dr Titov takes us on a journey from Khrushchev's peasant beginnings in Kursk, his rapid rise in the communist party, his role in the purges, to...

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  • Political and social attitudes underpinning the 1924 Olympics

    Article

    The 1924 Olympics in Paris are best known to many British people through the ‘Chariots of Fire’ film from the early 1980s. The film touches on some of the political and social attitudes prevalent in the 1920s and Steve Illingworth explores these issues further in this article. It is argued...

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  • Real Lives: Maharaja’s German: Anthony Pohlmann in India

    Article

    Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...

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  • Bonapartism after Napoleon III: the Prince Imperial and Eugene Loudun

    Article

    Emperor Napoleon III of France was deposed in 1870 and then died three years later. His son, known as the Prince Imperial, lived in exile in south-east England. There he and his supporters kept alive ambitions for a triumphant return of the Empire. In this article, Ian Sygrave assesses the...

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  • The Legacy of the Z Special Unit in World War II

    Article

    The Spirit of Normandy Trust Essay Competition is aimed at young historians and organised by the Historical Association (as part of the annual Young Historian Awards). The 2023 winner in the Key Stage 3 (lower secondary school) category is Ayan Sinha, a pupil at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield. In this abridged...

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  • The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

    Article

    The Nazis came to power in 1933 with an openly racist and antisemitic set of policies. In the years leading up to the start of the Second World War, those policies were carried out through legislation and governmental actions, with the support of many members of German society. Once the war started,...

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  • History Abridged: American Policy: theory and practice over 200 years

    Article

    History Abridged: In this feature we take a person, time, theme or event and tell you the vast rich history in small space. A long dip into history in a shortened form. See all History Abridged articles The ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in 1825 provided a cornerstone for future United States foreign policy. Drafted...

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  • Anti-Americanism in Britain during the Second World War

    Article

    The Second World War saw the development of significant anti-Americanism in Britain. This article locates the centre of wartime anti-Americanism in the politics of Conservative imperialists, who believed the USA was trying to deliberately dismantle the British Empire in order to fulfil its own imperial ambitions. The Second World War...

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  • Doomed to fail: America’s intervention in Vietnam

    Article

    Why did American military involvement in Vietnam fail?  In this article, David McGill explains why the United States never had a realistic chance of defeating the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies. The decision by the United States government to become involved in supporting the South Vietnamese government against the...

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  • The First Crusade, 1095–99

    Article

    As Christianity had spread across Europe, Islam had spread across the Middle East. At the end of the eleventh century the relationship between the Muslim leader of Jerusalem and the Christian communities and travellers to the city fractured. Along with other key relationships across Europe, the Middle East and around...

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  • Berlin and the Berlin Wall: on-demand short course

    Multipage Article

    Introduction The Berlin Wall became a symbol of a time in history, and a physical defining point in an otherwise covert series of battles. To study and explore the Berlin Wall is to explore how the Cold War manifested itself in Central Europe and the impact it had on one...

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  • Film series: Power and authority in Germany, 1871-1991

    Article

    The rise and fall of Germany in the 20th Century is one of the major political arcs of the modern period, and one that many feel familiar with – from the unification of the Germanic states, the defeat of the Kaiser in 1918, revolution, a weak Weimar Republic all the...

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  • The Spanish-American War revisited: rise of an American empire?

    Article

    Anthony Ruggiero reveals how United States foreign policy evolved from its effective adherence to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 into securing its own overseas ‘empire’. The Spanish-American War of 1898 was pivotal in launching the United States into recognition as an empire.  Following the war, the United Sates accepted its role...

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  • Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36

    Article

    Philip Woods discusses Evelyn Waugh’s contribution to understanding the nature of journalism before the Second World War. This article compares the value to historians of the two books Evelyn Waugh wrote based on his experiences as a war correspondent covering the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935–36. The popular satiric novel Scoop (1938) is...

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  • My great-grandfather and the Italian Campaign

    Article

    This remarkable item by a student at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield was the winning Young Historian entry in the Key Stage 3 Spirit of Normandy Trust category in 2022. I’ve always known my great-grandfather fought in the Second World War, but never like this. When he left the army, he never...

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  • The rise and fall of Nauru

    Article

    Aadam Patel offers an insight into the complexities of the recent economic history of a remote Pacific island. Nauru is an isolated island located in the Pacific Ocean approximately 4,400km north-east from Australia and 1,300km north-east from the Solomon Islands. With an area of just below 21 squared kilometres, it is...

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  • Mountbatten in retirement: the abortive trip to rebel Rhodesia

    Article

    Adrian Smith investigates an abortive plan for the earl to intervene in Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Earl Mountbatten of Burma boasted a unique CV: Chief of Combined Operations, Supreme Commander South-East Asia, Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord, Chief of the Defence Staff, and Viceroy of India. Yet somehow...

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  • What did ‘Mature Socialism’ mean for the Soviet Union?

    Article

    David Shipp analyses the state of socialism in the Soviet Union, from Brezhnev to Chernenko. ‘What is he thinking of? Reform, reform. Who needs it, and who can understand it? We need to work better, that is the only problem.’ These reported words of Leonid Brezhnev epitomise the view of the period...

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  • Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War

    Article

    In this HA Virtual Branch talk Professor Richard Toye explores Churchill’s response to the USSR and how his actions during the early Cold War years intersected with his views of traditional Anglo-Russian tensions and the legacy of the ‘Great Game’. Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University...

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