Between the 1850s and the 1930s in Britain, women political writers and journalists saw a dramatic development in the opportunities available to them. As Victorian censorship laws changed in the mid century and as divorce and property laws became ever more contested and unjustifiable, political writing that linked women’s civil rights with their political rights abounded.Continue reading “Victorian Women’s political publishing”
Monthly Archives: January 2016
France’s Colonial Empire
In the inter war years both the British and French empires, the last two major colonial players after the First World War, struggled to contain economic and ideological storms that threatened to tear them apart. These sometimes allied, sometimes antagonistic imperial systems were fundamentally different from one another on an organisational and ideological level, watchContinue reading “France’s Colonial Empire”
Joseph Goebbels and Total War
By early 1943, Adolf Hitler was an increasingly remote and reclusive figure in Germany. His health had declined due to the stresses of the war and he had begun to suffer from Parkinson’s disease. The Nazi government attempted to suppress the defeat at Stalingrad of the German Sixth Army (which had marched triumphantly into Paris threeContinue reading “Joseph Goebbels and Total War”
The Partition of India
In 1947 British rule in India came to an end and the subcontinent was partitioned into a Muslim East and West Pakistan and a majority Hindu India. The British Judge who drew the new borders of these states was Cyril Radcliffe, a secretive and territorial figure who had no prior knowledge of India. The resultContinue reading “The Partition of India”
Churchill, Roosevelt and the Atlantic Charter, 1941
In August 1941, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt met along with their top military and diplomatic advisors at Placentia Bay off the coast of Newfoundland. Their discussions shaped the western allied war aims and laid the foundations of a post war order based on the United Nations. American interventionContinue reading “Churchill, Roosevelt and the Atlantic Charter, 1941”
Hunger, Housing and Stalin’s First Five Year Plan
In 1928 the Soviet economy experienced a moment of massive change. For four years, as power struggles between Stalin and the ‘troika’ of Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev left Russia in a period of confused collective leadership, the biggest question had been one of economic direction. It was unclear how long Lenin’s New Economic Policy thatContinue reading “Hunger, Housing and Stalin’s First Five Year Plan”
America in 1945 – podcast and study notes
At the end of the Second World War, the United States of America emerged as the wealthiest society in human history. The contrast from the 1930s was stark; Britain, France and Germany had emerged from the great depression between 1933 and 1934, whereas mass unemployment was still prevalent in America in 1939. New industries, massiveContinue reading “America in 1945 – podcast and study notes”
The origins of the Gestapo: Study notes
This is a quick post for history students focusing on Nazi Germany. I’ve created some notes to download on the origins of the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), the Nazi Secret State Police. Secret political police forces in Germany existed before Hitler came to power and were amalgamated into the Gestapo, which fell under the auspices ofContinue reading “The origins of the Gestapo: Study notes”
The First World War and Britain’s Liberal Government
In the three years before the First World War, the Liberal Government, which had swept to power on a platform of social reform in 1906, faced unprecedented challenges and unrest. Foreign commentators saw the problems of Ireland, trade union militancy and the suffrage movement and assumed Britain might well be sliding towards a civil war.Continue reading “The First World War and Britain’s Liberal Government”
Churchill and Greece
Throughout the Second World War, Winston Churchill favoured a ‘Mediterranean Strategy’, believing that the ‘soft underbelly’ of Hitler’s Europe was Italy, Greece and the Balkans. By 1945, as the German occupiers of Greece withdrew in the face of a possible Red Army invasion Winston Churchill prioritised a British occupation of Greece to ensure that thereContinue reading “Churchill and Greece”
Explaining History Podcast 