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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 be mindful, however, that as a module ends, the idea that the issue in question has been ‘resolved’ is ‘over’ and/or ‘fixed’ can be unintentionally communicated to pupils. It goes without saying that this can result in a teleological and ahistorical view of change over time…
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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 Wales or Tyneside adult unemployment exceeded 70 percent. This podcast explores the response of the Jarrow ship workers, who look part in one of the many protest marches to London that were organised throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Their march, in 1936 received minimal support from…
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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 the French at the end of the war. This decision was not taken in order to help the French or as an act of charity towards them, it was designed to counter a deadly threat to the British Empire. The British were concerned that if Indochina…
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At the end of the Second World War, the British Army marched into the French colony of Indochina, which had been occupied by Japan for the previous four years. The British used Japanese and Indian troops to prevent a Viet Minh nationalist government establishing itself and returned French colonists to power. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and
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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. The first titles for women that were not written by men or that were more than merely a lady’s column in a national newspaper emerged. The extent to which this writing was truly egalitarian and aimed at women of all social classes, not just ‘ladies’ was…
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In the second half of the 19th Century a quiet publishing revolution was taking place. Victorian ladies with education and wealth were able to produce new newspapers, pamphlets and books demanding equal political and legal rights for women. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and share.▸ Support the Show & Get Exclusive ContentBecome a Patron: pat
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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, watch the video below for more on how France’s empire operated:
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Between 1918 and 1939 France’s overseas colonial empire, like Britain’s, grew with the acquisition of Ottoman territories as mandates. France’s empire was ruled using different ideas and institutions to Britain but both systems struggled to hold together during economically and politically turbulent decades. Explaining History helps you understand the 20th Century through critical conversations and expert interviews. We connect the past to the present. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and
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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 three years earlier), but by February it was announced that the army had been lost, sacrificing itself for the Reich. The catastrophe, combined with Hitler’s diminished presence became an opportunity for his propagandist Goebbels to increase his role and make a bid to be a…
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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 result was catastrophic bloodshed as communities were divided, ancestral lands were lost and millions had to flee ethnic violence or the prospect of being stranded in a state where they would be a minority. Conventional accounts of the end of the British Empire and Indian Nationalist…