by Amina Marzouk Chouchene | First Published by The Imperial and Global Forum The British Empire has been firmly tied to myth, adventure, and victory. For many Britons, “the empire was the mythic landscape of romance and adventure. It was that quarter of the globe that was colored and included darkest Africa and the mysterious East.”[1] […]
Did the British Empire depend on separating Parents and Children?
By Sumit Guha Empires ancient and modern are large, hierarchical organizations, structurally founded on deep inequalities of risk and reward. The British Empire in Asia was no exception. At the front lines of imperial power were, all too often, common men (and some women) who were tricked, cozened, misled, coerced, and whipped into serving as […]
The Public Archive: Indian Revolt of 1857
Millions of tweets and millions of state documents. Intimate oral histories and international radio addresses. Ancient pottery and yesterday’s memes. Historians have access to this immense store of online material for doing research, but what else can we do with it? In Spring 2018, graduate students in the Public and Digital History Seminar at UT […]
The Cold War’s World History and Imperial Histories of the US and the World
By John Munro St. Mary’s University [1] First published by the Imperial & Global Forum on February 14, 2018. The gap between the Cold War’s history and its new historiography spanned only about a decade and a half. The Cold War concluded during the George H.W. Bush presidency, but for the field we now call “the […]
Rethinking American Grand Strategy in the Asia Pacific
By More than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783. By Michael J. Green. Illustrated. 725 pp. Columbia University Press. $45. by Jonathan R. Hunt University of Southhampton First Published by The Imperial and Global Forum (October 23, 2017). Otto von Bismarck once remarked that the United States was blessed: “The Americans are truly […]
Victoria & Abdul: Simulacra & Simulation
by Gajendra Singh University of Exeter Posted in partnership with the History Department at the University of Exeter and The Imperial and Global Forum. One of the earliest films to be shot and then screened throughout India were scenes from the Delhi Durbar between December 29, 1902 and January 10, 1903 The Imperial Durbar, created to celebrate […]
Antonio de Ulloa’s Relación Histórica del Viage a la America Meridional
By Haley Schroer Nineteen-year-old Antonio de Ulloa set sail for the Americas in the spring of 1735. Ulloa was traveling as one of two assistants to a contingency of French scientists appointed to South America. The observations Ulloa and his counterpart, Jorge Juan, made on the excursion culminated in Relación Histórica del Viage a la […]
My Alternative PhD in History
By Ben Weiss A recent piece in The Economist claims that, “One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a […]
From Postcard to Picasso: Nakedness on Display
By Philippa Levine Francois Edmond Fortier (1862-1928) made a very good living working as a photographer in the French West African colony of Senegal. Fortier grew up in eastern France, close to the German border, and by 1899 was living in Senegal where he set up a photographic studio. In the early 1900s he travelled […]
Great Books on Women’s History: Asia
Not Even Past asked the UT Austin History faculty to recommend great books for Women’s History Month. The response was overwhelming so we will be posting their suggestions throughout the month. Here are some terrific book recommendations on women and gender in East Asia and South Asia