World

Europe may have been transforming itself in the early modern period but the rest of the world was not standing still. In this section we can learn about the emerging United States, the wealth and power of the Mughal Empire and the economic impact of the slave trade, alongside the cultural destruction and changes it made on the lives of the enslaved. Read more

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  • Film: The Ruin of All Witches

    Article

    Professor Malcom Gaskill joined the HA Virtual Branch on Thursday 10th December 2022 to discuss the subject of his book, The Ruin of all Witches, Life and Death in the New World, which was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize in 2022. His research explores the attitudes, beliefs and treatment of people as...

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  • Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen

    Article

    Khadija Tauseef introduces the first of four successive sultanahs of Aceh during the seventeenth century. As the sun sets on the glorious reign of Queen Elizabeth II, we pause and look back at the many queens that have contributed greatly to our historical heritage. While female sovereigns in Islamic kingdoms were a...

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  • Out and About in Madagascar

    Article

    Madagascar is one of the world’s more intriguing destinations. If it is famous for anything – apart from sharing a name with a truly terrible film franchise – it is probably for its wildlife, much of which is found nowhere else. But whereas most people have at least an idea of...

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  • The Duchy of Courland and a Baltic colonial venture across the ocean

    Article

    The Duchy of Courland’s attempts to establish outposts in the Caribbean and Africa were not the only Baltic ventures across the Atlantic during the seventeenth century. However, the expeditions of the small vassal dukedom were possibly the most unlikely. The article introduces the motivations behind the Couronian colonial project, as...

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  • The British Empire on trial

    Article

    In the light of present-day concerns about the place, in a modern world, of statues commemorating figures whose roles in history are of debatable merit, Dr Gregory Gifford puts the British Empire on trial, presenting a balanced case both for and against. In June 2020 when the statue of slave-trader Edward Colston...

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  • ‘Zulu’ and the end of Empire

    Article

    In this article, Nicolas Kinloch examines the 1964 film Zulu. He suggests what it might tell us about the reality of the British Empire and asks if it has anything to say about the era in which the film was made. One of the most successful British films of 1964...

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  • History Abridged: Language and the African continent

    Article

    History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles Africa is a huge continent...

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  • Lecture recording: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution

    Article

    In this Virtual Branch webinar we were joined in conversation with Dr Toby Green on his acclaimed book 'A Fistful of Shells'. Shortlisted for the 2020 Wolfson Prize and winner of the 2019 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, the book explores West Africa from the Rise of the...

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  • What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the impact of the British Empire on Britain?

    Article

    The murder of George Floyd during the summer of 2020 and the ongoing ‘culture war’ in Britain over the legacy of the British Empire have reignited interest in imperial history. This focuses, in particular, on the question of the empire’s impact on Britain itself: on how the act of conquering...

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  • Film: 'Mayflower Lives: building a New Jerusalem in the New World'

    Article

    Historian and author Martyn Whittock recently gave a lecture for the HA Virtual Branch on 'Mayflower Lives: building a New Jerusalem in the New World'. In 1620, 102 ill-prepared asylum seekers landed two months later than planned, in the wrong place on the eastern coast of North America. By the next summer, half of...

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  • The 1620 Mayflower voyage and the English settlement of North America

    Article

    On the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims in New England on the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock explores the reasons for migration to the New World in 1620 and later, and the significance of those migrants, both at the time and their impact on the evolution of the USA...

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  • The changing convict experience: forced migration to Australia

    Article

    Edward Washington explores the story of William Noah who was sentenced to death for burglary in 1797 at the age of 43. He, and two others, were found guilty of breaking and entering the dwelling-house of Cuthbert Hilton, on the night of the 13 February. From Newgate Prison he was...

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  • What Have Historians Been Arguing About... migration and empire

    Article

    In autumn 2019, Kara Walker’s monumental sculpture, Fons Americanus, went on display in the Tate Modern, offering a poignant, troubling challenge to national commemoration. Walker depicts not the lingering vestiges of imperial glory, but sharks, tears, and haunted memories. She brings history into conversation with its contemporary legacies and engages...

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  • What have historians been arguing about... decolonisation and the British Empire?

    Article

    Decolonisation is a contested term. When first used in 1952, it referred to a political event: a colony gaining independence; it has since come to describe a process. When, where and why this process began, however, and whether it has ended, are all fiercely debated. Is it about new flags...

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  • The Voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot

    Article

    Historians have debated the voyages of John and Sebastian Cabot who first discovered North America under the reign of Henry VII. The primary question was who [John or Sebastian] was responsible for the successful discovery. A 1516 account stated Sebastian Cabot sailed from Bristol  to Cathay, in the service of...

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  • Ferninando Gorges and New England

    Article

    Sir Ferdinando Gorges (July 1565 - May 24, 1647), by some considered the "Father of English Colonization in North America", was an early English colonial entrepreneur and founder of the Province of Maine in 1622, although Gorges himself never set foot in the New World.  Sir Ferdinando Gorges was born...

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  • The Darien Scheme - Pamphlet

    Article

    The colonisation project that became known as the Darien Scheme or Darien Disaster was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darién in the late 1690s. This pamphlet...

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  • Ideas on the Shape, Size and Movements of the Earth - Pamphlet

    Article

    This classic pamphlet takes you through some of the key ideas on the shape, size and movements of the Earth as they changed over time from classical cosmology to the work of Galileo and Isaac Newton.

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  • The effect of the loss of the American Colonies upon British Policy

    Article

    (1) Problems of an Empire in ruinsTwo weeks after Yorktown, but before the news of that disaster had reached England, George III wrote to Lord North that "The dye is now cast whether this shall be a great Empire or the least dignified of European states." England had not fought...

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  • The Great Powers in the Pacific

    Article

    This pamphlet covers a very large period of history in a very important region with great detail and focus. Themes that are covered include the transition of power and dominance in the pacific region, the conflicts that frequently arose in the struggle for pacific dominance throughout the centuries, as well...

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