colonialism

New Research Shows British Industrialization Drew Ironworking Methods from Colonized and Enslaved Jamaicans

A process for producing wrought iron from scrap had been credited to Henry Cort. But Cort likely adopted it from a Jamaican works operated by 76 Black metallurgists, including enslaved workers. 

Chad Williams on W.E.B. DuBois and the First World War

Michelle Moyd and David W. Blight comment on Chad Williams's discussion of DuBois's unfinished manuscript about the deep questions of race, democracy, and world affairs raised by the first World War. 

Ayahs, Amahs and Empire: The History of Domestic Care Work under Colonialism

by Julia Laite

The history of domestic and child care work has become increasingly robust, but museums and public exhibitions have struggled to find ways to represent the work and experiences of women, many from south Asia, who traveled with white colonial families to perform this labor, putting marginalized people in charge of the empire's children. 

“Of the East India Breed …”: The First South Asians in British North America

by Brinda Charry

The known records of the first south Asian people in Virginia are not voluminous, but they direct our attention to the complexities of racial identity in early America and the global networks of trade and labor that would make the British Empire. 

Where to Look for the Evidence of Colonial Violence

by Erik Linstrum

The British government's efforts to conceal potentially embarrasing records as decolonization accelerated in the 1950s and 1960s means that historians need to know where to look for contemporary evidence of the violence of colonization and counterinsurgent tactics. 

Seeking Justice for the Youngest Victims of Belgian Colonialism in the Congo

by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman

Because Belgian colonial policy insisted upon rigid lines of racial hierarchy, mixed-race children who were not acknowledged by their Belgian parent were made wards of the government and institutionalized. 

Review: Lingering Ghosts of British Empire

by Priya Satia

Journalist Sathnam Sanghera insists that British education needs to renew a focus on empire to allow students to understand the global significance of empire and colonialism in the present, particularly as contemporary Brits debate the merits of a multicultural society. 

Vatican Repudiates "Doctrine of Discovery" that Justified Colonialism by Catholic Nations

The Vatican acknowledged that certain papal bulls dating to the 15th century have been adopted to justify the abusive and even genocidal acts of colonizers, though it did also suggest that secular authorities manipulated and selectively interpreted church statements out of context for political reasons. 

Brits Don't Need to Compare Refugee Policy to Nazis—British History is Cruel Enough

by Priyamvada Gopal

"As its government demonises undocumented people seeking shelter today, it is worth remembering that Britain has historically been more a refugee-making country than a refugee-taking one."

Natalye Pass Harpin on the Lives of Black Germans under Nazism

Nazi policy toward the nation's Black residents was strongly influenced by American Jim Crow laws and illustrates the dangers of militantly racial ideas of nationhood. 

Is it Time to Rethink the Term "Indigenous"?

by Manvir Singh

The concept of indigenous peoples was developed to describe political relationships formed by European colonialism. Does it aptly describe complex ethnic relationships today? And can it be disrupted by archaeological discoveries of migration and habitation? 

For Native Hawaiians, February 14 is About the Death of Captain James Cook

The indigenous Hawai'ian resistance to the efforts of Cook to control the islands remains a key moment both in the colonial history of the islands and for the native culture. 

The Bitter, Contested History of Globalization

Tara Zahra's book places the conflicts of the middle of the 20th century in the context of profound global debates about how interconnected the world should be, and on whose terms. 

Caroline Dodds Pennock on The Indigenous Americans Who Visited Europe

by Karin Wulf

In contrast to the stock story of the "Age of Exploration," Indigenous Americans often traveled to Europe afte 1492. A new book looks to this history to examine the origins of a cosmopolitan world. 

Parthenon Marbles' Fate Subject to Secret Talks

The British Museum and Greek government officials have acknowledged secret talks over the last two years about the repatriation of marbles taken by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon in the early 1800s. The resolution is not yet known. 

Was Emancipation Intended to Perpetuate Slavery by Other Means?

by Sean Wilentz

Protests movements have latched on to a misguided interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment that argues it allowed and even encouraged the system of mass incarceration as an extension of slavery. A new global history extends that critique to the age of emancipation in general.

Philly's Columbus Statue is Out of the Box—So is the Discussion About His Legacy

Historian Hasan Kwame Jeffries talks about controversial statues: one removed in Richmond, and one uncovered in Philadelphia.

A Paris Museum Holds 18,000 Human Skulls, but Won't Say Whose

By identifying the sources of skulls in its collection, France's Museum of Mankind fears it might open itself to demands for restitution. 

Does Novelist Robert Keable Deserve a Reappraisal?

by Simon Keable-Elliott

Briefly celebrated in the 1920s, then consigned to posthumous obscurity, the missionary and novelist, whose experiences encompassed the collision of colonialism, war and racism in the British empire, is overdue for rediscovery. 

The Specter of Foreign Forces in Haiti

by Ambroise Jean-Léon (trans. by Awori Othieno)

The situation in Haiti now echoes a long history of coercion by foreign governments who have leveraged the threat of invasion to steer domestic politics.