World

The modern world cannot be studied without examining the course, impact and legacy of two world wars, the resources in this section set out to look at both the First and Second World Wars in their global context. The section also includes the Cold War and its impact in Latin America, South-East Asia and parts of Africa. This period also sees the rise and fall of European imperialism and the changing nature of global politics and economics as technology brings different stories from so many parts of the world directly to us. Read more

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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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  • The Story of the African Queen

    Article

    Where fact and fiction intercept: the story of The African Queen(s) by C.S. Forester When the Königin Luise was hull down over the horizon and the dhow was close in-shore the lieutenant left his post and went down to the jetty to meet his senior officer. The dhow ran briskly in,...

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  • The Story of the First War in The Middle East over Oil

    Article

    (Redondo Beach, CA, February 11, 2008) In 1914, the British invaded Mesopotamia (now called Iraq) to protect their oil interests in the region. What began as a limited military initiative, with no expectation for occupation, resulted in over four decades of active political and military involvement, including the battling of...

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  • The Sykes-Picot agreement and lines in the sand

    Article

    Paula Kitching reveals how a secret diplomatic negotiation 100 years ago provides an insight into the political complexities of the modern-day Middle East. The Middle East is an area frequently in the news. Over the last ten years the national and religious tensions appear to have exploded with whole regions...

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  • The Undergrowth of History

    Article

    We can do all kinds of things with the past - examine it analytically, or question whether it ever existed, or churn it up inside ourselves until it turns into personal experience. We can dream it as we lounge amidst a heap of ruins, or petrify it into a museum;...

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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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  • The Uses of History in the Twenty First Century

    Article

    During the last century or so there has developed a new ‘public role’ for history: the past as personal history, a vital element in the nourishing of people in society. During the past decades a new perception of what history is has manifested itself on two levels: first a shift of...

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  • The Versailles Peace Settlement

    Article

    This classic pamphlet takes you through the Paris Peace Conference and the 'German Question', Peacemaking and the Treaty of Versailles, Europe and the German question after Versailles.

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  • The Victorian Age

    Article

    This Classic Pamphlet was published in 1937 (the centenary of the accession of Queen Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on June 20, 1837). Synopsis of contents: 1. Is the Victorian Age a distinct 'period' of history? Landmarks establishing its beginning: the Reform Bill, railways, other inventions, new leaders in...

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  • The cultural biography of opium in China

    Article

    Zheng Yangwen shows that despite its association with trade, war and politics, opium was first of all a history of consumption. Opium has fascinated generations of scholars and generated excellent scholarship on the opium trade, Anglo-Chinese relations, the two opium wars, and Commissioner Lin. The field has diversified in the post-Mao...

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  • The great British postwar exodus

    Article

    Murray Watson uses oral history interviews to try to explain the many and varied reasaons people had for emigrating from Britain after World War II. When I was invited to write this article about postwar emigration from the UK my first action was to Google the search term ‘postwar emigration from...

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  • The origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

    Article

    On 29 January 1949 there was a debate in the British House of Commons. When Winston Churchill, the leader of the opposition, interrupted Ernest Bevin’s history of the Palestine problem he was told by the Foreign Secretary: ‘over half a million Arabs have been turned by the Jewish immigrants into...

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  • The shortest war in history: The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896

    Article

    At 9am on 27 August 1896, following an ultimatum, five ships of the Royal Navy began a bombardment of the Royal Palace and Harem in Zanzibar. Thirty-eight, or 40, or 43 minutes later, depending on which source you believe, the bombardment stopped when the white flag of surrender was raised...

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  • The world in 1913: friendly societies

    Article

    Friendly societies were designed to help members to cope with the illness, death or unemployment of a household's breadwinner. Each month members, mostly men, paid into the society, often at a meeting in a pub and in return payments from the pooled funds were made to ill members and to...

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  • Volunteers to a man: an industrial workplace goes to war

    Article

    In this article Edward Washington explores how the Royal Mint in Sydney, Australia was affected by the First World War, through the loss of professional staff and the legacy of experiencing conflict. The Royal Mint, Sydney, which opened in 1855 in response to the Australian gold rushes, was the first...

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  • WWI and the flu pandemic

    Article

    In our continuing Aspects of War series Hugh Gault reveals that the flu pandemic, which began during the First World War, presented another danger that challenged people’s lives and relationships. Wounded in the neck on the first day of the battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916, Arthur Conan Doyle’s son Kingsley...

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  • War Plan Red: the American Plan for war with Britain

    Article

    John Major discusses an astonishing aspect of past Anglo-American history. All great powers have developed contingency plans for war with each other, and the United States in the early twentieth century was no exception. Each of Washington’s schemes was given a distinctive colour. Green mapped out intervention in neighbouring Mexico,...

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  • Webinar series: The Olympic Games

    Multipage Article

    A series of free talks 2024 is an Olympic Games year. Held every four years (with the exception of during the World Wars and Covid-19 restrictions), the modern Olympics is the largest international sporting event in the world. However, historically it has not always been just the sports that are played...

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  • Western Dress and Ambivalence in the South Pacific

    Article

    Michael Sturma examines an aspect of the cultural impact of the West in the South Pacific. ‘States of undress, or the partially clad body, invite particularly ambivalent responses.’ One of the main preoccupation’s of early European visitors to the South Pacific was the nudity or partial nudity of the indigenous...

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  • What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the British Empire and the age of revolutions in the global South

    Article

    The historiography of the British Empire has taken a long course since the era of decolonisation. Political histories of the late twentieth century considered the mechanisms connecting crises at the ‘periphery’ with metropolitan decision-making. One rather overused stereotype was the so-called ‘man on the spot’ pushing empire forward, be they...

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