Monthly Archives: February 2016

In 1922 the Institute for Social Research was established in Frankfurt, bringing together many of the more disparate strands of leftist thinking in Europe in the aftermath of the First World War. Here’s a video on a small part of the institution’s vast impact on 20th Century thought.

When I studied American history about 27 years ago, during the late 1980s, we gave a cursory look at the development of post war suburbia. In a packed syllabus there was little time to do the topic justice. Considering the many millions of Americans the development of suburbia affected, both positively and negatively, it should beContinue reading “Suburbia and Segregation”

One of the problems with the teaching of GCSE history is the tendency for narrative to insert itself into specific modules. This is perhaps unavoidable as history has been passed on as story for tens of thousands of years and taught as an intellectual discipline for a little over 200. It is important to beContinue reading “Teaching Happy Endings”

By 1934, Britain appeared to have survived the worst effects of the great depression. Unemployment had begun to decline and new light industries in the south and the midlands had developed, supplying consumer goods for an affluent middle class. Britain’s economic problems were regionalised, however, and in the worst affected areas such as South WalesContinue reading “The Jarrow March, 1936”

From 1943 onwards, long before the outcome of Britain’s war against Japan in Asia was certain, British colonial administrators pondered about what to do with French Indochina (occupied by Japan in 1941), once the Japanese were defeated. They knew comparatively little about the colony and believed it would be best to return it to theContinue reading “Britain’s involvement in Vietnam 1945”