The Making of the British Empire

1. Introduction: “The first Empire was built by pirates” (Niall Ferguson)

Britain and “Abroad”: The Rise of Empire 1660-1688

Foreign and Colonial Policy 1660-1760 Since 1640, Portugal had been fighting a war of independence against Spain after a dynastic union of 60 years between the crowns of Spain and Portugal. Portugal had been helped by France, but in the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659 Portugal was abandoned by its French ally. Upon Charles’ [...]

Gender and Civil Rights

The non-violent demonstrations against racial segregation that took place in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 represent one of the major events in the history of the civil rights movement in the United States. Organised by Revd Martin Luther King Jr’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Birmingham campaign exposed the viciousness of southern racism. Pictures of [...]

The Black Experience in the American Civil War (2)

The issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined from the onset of the Civil War.

The Black Experience of the Civil war

What was the black experience during the American Civil war?

Analysing “Empire”: the Boer Camps

The most significant threat to the British public’s acceptance of the Boer war came in its latter phase, with the 1901-02 scandal over the South African concentration camps established by the British army.

How did Britain develop as a world-power between 1660 and 1760?

The thesis of this sketch survey is that Britain developed through a combination of dynastic shifts, strategic trade outposts and aggressive nationalistic policies, expressed through its navy, into a position of world-wide authority (if not supremacy) between the years 1660 and 1760.

The Guardian and the Boer War

1900: A group of war correspondents in South Africa during the Boer War. Amongst them is a young Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965), middle row second from left, reporting for the Morning Post. The others include: back row, left to right: William Dinwiddie of Harper’s Weekly, Alister Campbell of Laffan’s News Agency, J Atkins of [...]

A “letter to the Times”: the YouTube of the Crimea

In their range and number, the letters to the editor during the Crimean War were truly extraordinary.

CRIMEA: Analyse the probable effect of “participatory journalism”

Here’s your essay title. 1. Read the article below on the Crimean War and the Freedom of the Press It includes the concept of “participatory journalism”. This phrase simply denotes the way that the Victorian public joined in the publication of information about the war and reaction to it, from their own perspectives, in private [...]