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1. Episode 6: The 100 Years' War on Palestine

Author:
Sahar Aziz and Rashid Khalidi
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
This episode delves into one hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, while backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. Host Sahar Aziz (https://saharazizlaw.com/ ) and this week’s guest, historian and distinguished Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi, will discuss the origins and consequences of this non stop aggression against the Palestinians – which is also the subject of his latest book: ”The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017.
Topic:
History, Zionism, Colonialism, and Palestinians
Political Geography:
Britain, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and United States of America

2. A History of British Elections with Iain Dale

Author:
Robert Saunders, Iain Dale, Philip Cowley, and Jennifer Davey
Publication Date:
04-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London
Abstract:
On Wednesday 10 April 2024, the Mile End Institute celebrated the launch of Iain Dale's new book, British General Election Campaigns, 1830-2019. Featuring an essay on every general election since 1830, the book ranges across every aspect of electoral history: from landslides and hung parliaments to corruption, electoral violence and the birth of the modern campaign. With a cast ranging from William Gladstone and Sir Robert Peel to Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson, it explores how elections are won and lost, how they have changed over time, and what lessons can be drawn for the present.
Topic:
History, Elections, and Domestic Politics
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, and Europe

3. Robert Maxwell’s Expectations Gap: Regulation and Reputation in the British Communications Industry, 1981-91

Author:
Charlie Harris
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
During Robert Maxwell’s turbulent lifetime, the world knew him as one of the most successful businessmen in Britain, presiding over a publishing and media empire in direct competition with that of Rupert Murdoch. In 1991, Robert Maxwell died – at which point the world discovered that he was, in fact, far beyond bankrupt. As banks called in their huge loans, accountants found that his empire boasted £2 billion in debt. When he drowned, various auditors and authorities were close to catching him in an enormous fraud. Maxwell had stolen around £460 million from his employees’ pension funds and committed extensive stock fraud in order to manipulate the share prices of his empire. Accusations of fraud and mismanagement dogged Maxwell’s career, but to little effect. Beginning with a single publishing house, he built a media empire. His rivalry with Rupert Murdoch – and perhaps his emotional state, which was notoriously volatile and competitive – drove him to expand at an unsustainable pace, which he supported with confidence trickery and enormous loans. His debts quickly outstripped his assets. Desperately scrambling to repay the loans, he turned to stock fraud and his employees’ pension funds. Still desperate for capital six months before his death, Maxwell floated his largest-ever venture – Mirror Group Newspapers – which successfully attracted £250 million in investment, despite the destitution of its parent company. Public autopsies concluded that the blame lay not just with Maxwell, but with advisers, regulators, and complicit financial institutions. Maxwell killed himself (though some still speculate he was murdered) shortly before a scheduled meeting that would have uncovered his fraud. Maxwell did not leave his family destitute, but they no longer had immediate access to the lifestyle to which they had become accustomed. His sons continued working in the City of London. His daughter, Ghislaine Maxwell, continued to circulate in high society. Her crimes are now better known than her father’s; she is famous for her work as Jeffrey Epstein’s right-hand woman, procuring victims (often under-age) for Epstein’s “prostitution ring” (something of a misnomer, as the term implies consent). Both scandals implicated some of the most powerful figures of their day, and in both cases, th
Topic:
Communications, History, Capitalism, Industry, and Robert Maxwell
Political Geography:
Britain and Europe

4. The West, Israel and Settler Colonization of Palestine with Professor Prof. Joseph Massad

Author:
Joseph Massad
Publication Date:
12-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
In this pivotal lecture, Professor Massad will delve into the intricate history of Western colonial intervention in Palestine, exploring the events that shaped the region both before and after the establishment of Israel. This lecture offers a comprehensive understanding of Israel's ongoing conflict with the Palestinian people, framed within the broader historical context of Western racism and its role in supporting and enabling these tensions.
Topic:
History, Colonialism, Settler Colonialism, Racism, and Palestinians
Political Geography:
Britain, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and United States of America

5. Imperial Mecca: An Interview with Prof. Michael Low

Author:
Michael Low and Mahdi Chowdhury
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
The Toynbee Prize Foundation
Abstract:
The hajj—that is, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca—is a pillar of faith for Muslims, but in the late nineteenth century, it was also a legal, epidemiological, and imperial frontier. In his long-anticipated Imperial Mecca: Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean Hajj, Michael Christopher Low offers an account how that “very heart of Islam”—Mecca and the Hijaz—came to straddle “two imperial worlds.” Imperial Mecca charts how the British Empire came to challenge Ottoman imperial legitimacy and, subsequently, affect its pilgrimage administration, its relationship to non-Ottoman Muslims, and inspire administrative anxieties around the semi-autonomous province of the Hijaz. Since his widely-read 2008 article, “Empire and the Hajj,” Low has been a leading contributor in the now flourishing field of hajj studies. Based on archives largely based in Istanbul and London, Imperial Mecca consolidates nearly fifteen years of research, reflection, and labour and reasserts an understudied “Ottoman sense of space, place, population, environment, and territory back [into] our understanding of the transimperial hajj.” Michael Christopher Low is an Assistant Professor of History at Iowa State University and, presently, a Senior Humanities Research Fellow at NYU Abu Dhabi. Along with the publication of Imperial Mecca, he is also the co-editor of the recently published volume, The Subjects of Ottoman International Law. In our interview, we discuss—among many topics—Low’s intellectual and biographical journey as a historian, Ottoman archives and historiography, and the present and future of hajj studies.
Topic:
Imperialism, Islam, Religion, History, Ottoman Empire, and British Empire
Political Geography:
Britain, Mecca, Arabian Peninsula, and Indian Ocean

6. Turkish-Greek Rapprochement in the 1930s: The British Factor as a Third Party

Author:
Emine Tutku Vardağlı
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Academic Inquiries
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
The third party effect in international relations gained popularity in 1990s in the context of conflict resolution. However, the Turkish-Greek relations in the modern era have always been discussed in reference to a third party involvement and Britain has always prevailed over the other countries as the most prominent third party. This study searches for the British influence on the Turkish-Greek rapprochement in 1930s. The British factor influence is usually taken as a matter of Great Power dominance or the “provocateur of rivalries between the two nations” from the Turkish point of view or “cooperation of allies” from the Greek point of view. Whereas, this study focuses on a specific conjuncture in which Britain acted neither as a “provocateur” nor as an “ally” for any party. In reference to the historical sources, it is documented that from the late 1920s the British approach to the Turkish-Greek affairs was altered dramatically, parallel to the overarching systemic changes in the interwar period Specifically, it is argued that the revision of British financial policy in response to the Great Depression and its retreat from the Eastern Mediterranean as a naval power directed Greece to change its foreign policy orientations with a sudden demarche and offer Turkey a peace settlement. Rather than attributing this rapprochement to the efforts of charismatic leaders, this study analyses the issue with a realist mind in reference to the British policies modified in parallel to the systemic changes during the interwar years.
Topic:
International Relations, History, and Rapprochement
Political Geography:
Britain, Turkey, Greece, and Mediterranean

7. Morris Motors: How Oxford became a Motor City

Author:
David White, Jack Felton, and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
Oxford’s history is one of industry. One of Britain’s largest cities in the medieval and early modern period at a crucial crossing of the River Thames, the city remained a transport hub through the First Industrial Revolution. As the meeting point of the West Midlands’ canal network and the major river, Oxford facilitated water transport between the industrial heartlands and the capital. With the advent of the railways, Oxford’s position as a crossroads solidified. Later, Oxfordshire’s inland position and relatively flat geography would make it an ideal location for airbases in wartime. Road traffic, first horse-drawn and later horseless, also passed through Oxford as major roads led to and from the city. But Oxford is a home to vehicle manufacture not just a transport hub. Oxford is the UK’s motor city. These days the majority of Formula 1 teams have their headquarters in Oxfordshire, while BMW’s Mini plant is situated in the Cowley area of Oxford on the site of the old Morris Motors factory.
Topic:
Economics, History, Capitalism, Transportation, Industry, and Cars
Political Geography:
Britain and UK

8. In the Shadow of the British Empire: International Law and the State of Decolonization

Author:
Quentin Levin
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
The sun may have set on the British Empire, but its shadow lingers over modern Britain’s foreign policy. Britain retains fourteen minor overseas territories worldwide, though its global ambitions lie beyond these vestiges of its empire. Today, the United Kingdom is a nation on the move—it is just not yet sure where. Its people resolved in a 2016 referendum to reverse European integration, rekindle economic ties with the Commonwealth, and strengthen the “Special Relationship” with the United States. Yet, as Britain attempts to reassert its national sovereignty, it is haunted by the specter of its imperialist past and the constraints imposed by international institutions it helped strengthen.
Topic:
International Law, History, Decolonization, and Empire
Political Geography:
Britain and Europe

9. The New British Colonialism: British Policy of Influence in the Arab Gulf States after the Withdrawal (1971-1991)

Author:
Selin M. Bolme and Mevlut Cavusoglu
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
This paper aims to analyze Britain’s relations with the former colonies in the Gulf after the termination of the British protectorate in the Persian Gulf and discuss how the British colonial ties influenced the post-colonial relations with the Arab Gulf States. Archive documents, official papers and secondary sources were used in order to determine and compare the relations in pre/post withdrawal periods and the results were analyzed in frame of the Post-colonial theory. The main argument of this study is that the British colonial relations and ties, which had been constructed in political, military, economic and institutional spheres in the colonial era, were significant determinants in reshaping the new British foreign policy towards the Arab Gulf States. Britain, who successfully adopted the colonial relations in the new term, managed to preserve its interests after the withdrawal and even extended some of them in certain fields such as the oil sector.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, History, and Colonialism
Political Geography:
Britain, Europe, and Persian Gulf

10. Healing in the Himalayas: Robert Saunders, Surgeon, and the Embassy to Bhutan and Tibet of 1783

Author:
Lindsey Valancius and Trevor Lipscombe
Publication Date:
06-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:
Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:
In 1783, Captain Samuel Turner, surveyor Samuel Davis, and surgeon Robert Saunders journeyed from India on an embassy through Bhutan and into Tibet. Saunders, of the Bengal Medical Service, reported his medical observations in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the leading science journal of its time. In his observations, Saunders provides glimpses into both Bhutanese and British medical practices of the late eighteenth century. Saunders’ description and observations of goiter became widely quoted, helping to forge a path to the elimination of the condition, and his explanation for the causes of snow blindness were confirmed in laboratory experiments more than 100 years later. Saunders not only sought to observe and to teach, but also to learn from the local healers he encountered. His writings show a respect for the Bhutanese and Tibetan peoples and their medical knowledge that is rare in colonial writings.
Topic:
Science and Technology, History, Colonialism, and Medicine
Political Geography:
Britain, South Asia, Bhutan, and Himalayas