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 Olympics - politics, impact and legacy - its not just about the sport

    Article

    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 and the athletes’ performances...

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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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  • Facing the Revolution: the other Americans

    Article

    The American Revolution presented all who lived through it with difficult choices about allegiance, identity, and self-interest.  The responses of American loyalists, enslaved people, and Native Americans reveal much about the country’s revolutionary foundation and the United States of today. The American Revolution was at once universal and narrowly nationalistic....

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  • My Favourite History Place: The Tenement Museum, New York

    Article

    The Tenement Museum is not remotely like any museum I had previously visited. It is an old tenement building where generations of New York migrants lived and loved, worked and had families before moving both on and out. The Tenement Museum tells the story of the Lower East Side through the...

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  • Muddy Waters: from migrant to music icon

    Article

    Matt Jux-Blayney explores the impact of the blues singer Muddy Waters against a backdrop of significant social and racial change in the United States of the mid-twentieth century. On 3 July 1960, a man from Mississippi was introduced onto the stage of the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. He...

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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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  • 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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  • 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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  • Ending Camelot: the assassination of John F Kennedy

    Article

    The murder of America’s thirty-fifth president is often regarded as one of the key events in the recent history of the United States. Numerous conspiracy theories have made it appear more complex, and more mysterious, than was in fact the case. No event in recent American history has been more comprehensively...

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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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  • The Mary Celeste: the history of a mystery

    Article

    Graham Faiella guides us through the historical evidence and literary speculation surrounding one of the ultimately unresolved incidents of recent times. One hundred and fifty years ago, sometime between 25 November and 4 December 1872, the brigantine Mary Celeste was abandoned at sea somewhere between the Azores and the coast of Portugal....

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  • Real Lives: Anna Wessels Williams (1863–1954)

    Article

    Patrick J Pead writes about a truly remarkable woman whose contribution to advances in medicine deserves far wider recognition. 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...

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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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  • Recorded Webinar: ‘Drawing the Line’: the 1947 Partition of India

    Article

    August 2022 marks 75 years since British India was divided at independence into two separate states: India and Pakistan (the latter including today’s Bangladesh). As with the 70th commemoration in 2017, this anniversary will trigger a great deal of collective remembering in Britain just as in South Asia itself. Freedom from...

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  • Recorded Webinar: India and the Second World War

    Article

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  • Recorded Webinar: Resisting Reagan

    Article

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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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  • 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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