Departments

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colonialism

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    10/12/2021

    Jack Johnson and Africa: Boxing and Race in Colonial Africa

    by Abraham Tapiwa Seda

    Jack Johnson's achievement as the world heavyweight champion had cultural significance far beyond the United States, as European colonial regimes that had used sports like boxing as instruments of social control found that they could also be instruments of rebellion and rejection of white supremacy.

  • 10/17/2021

    The Fantasy of Hispanic Heritage Month

    by Frank P. Barajas

    Conceived by a Congressman to honor the contributions of ethnic Mexicans to American society, Hispanic Heritage Month is based in a mythical Spanish past that obscures the indigenous history of the west and legitimates the succession of power from Iberian to Anglo elites. 

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    8/20/2021

    The Disasters in Afghanistan and Haiti Share the Same Twisted Root

    by Jonathan M. Katz

    "Both Haiti and Afghanistan owe their sorry conditions to decades of direct U.S. control. Looking closely at the links between the two is essential for understanding how to respond to each in ways that help, rather than do more harm."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    8/21/2021

    Afghanistan: A Failure Foretold?

    Historians of numerous colonial and imperial misadventures – from Indochina to Algieria to Afghanistan – suggest that American goals should have been recognized as incompatible with the reality of Afghan society. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    8/18/2021

    The US Repeated Mistakes of the Past in Afghanistan

    by Ali A. Olomi

    "By flooding Afghanistan with payoffs, bribes and aid, the British created a system of endemic corruption in which local chieftains and favorable bureaucrats would enrich themselves while the rest of the country remained relatively poor."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    6/11/2021

    Racist Mural Puts Tate Galleries in a Bind

    Portions of a Rex Whistler mural in the Tate's restaurant contain racially offensive images. The work as a whole is protected by British heritage laws and can't be altered, putting the museum in a bind between preservation and cultural sensitivity. 

  • SOURCE: National Interest
    5/24/2021

    How Napoleon’s Legacy Explains the Middle East’s Conflicts

    by Yoav Tenembaum

    An international relations scholar argues that the Middle East can be explained through the division of "revolutionary" and "status quo" interests that dates to Napoleon's challenges to the European imperial order. How other nations respond to the conflict will follow whether they favor the status quo. 

  • 5/23/2021

    Jerusalem: A Divided and Invented City

    by James A.S. Sunderland

    Both Hamas and the Israeli right base their claims to Jerusalem on understandings of the city as shaped by the orientalist and segregationist values of British governors during the Mandate period, and not on the city's longer heterogenous and multicultural history. Peace activists look to that history as an example of coexistence. 

  • SOURCE: Public Books
    5/14/2021

    Imperialism: A Syllabus

    by Radhika Natarajan and John Munro

    Two historians present a public syllabus on imperialism that emphasizes the historical origins of contemporary struggles and the ways that ideas of difference are essential to the imperial work of control and exploitation. 

  • SOURCE: WRAL
    5/17/2021

    Germany Nears Accord with Namibia on Colonial Killings

    Germany has hinted at its readiness to make compensation payments to Namibia in reparation for the genocidal attacks on the Herero and other peoples in 1904, considered one of the first modern genocides.