De-Bunking the Barbarians
The idea of barbarian invasions comes from the nineteenth century, when they were constructed as the decisive event that wrenched the West into modernity.
Annexation Nation
Since 1823, when the Monroe Doctrine was first introduced to the world, the US has regarded Cuba as key to its designs for Latin America.
The Habshi Dynasty of India
Amongst the hundreds of minorities within the Subcontinent, Black Indians of African origin stand out.
Windrush Day
There were British African Caribbean immigrants to the UK well before June 22, 1948, but it was the arrival of Empire Windrush that got the media's attention.
Isabelle Eberhardt: Travel’s Rebel with a Cause
A hash-smoking, cross-dressing woman traveling the Sahara in the early 1900s, Eberhardt unpicked the fabric of society just by being herself.
Publishing Queer Berlin
Weimar Germany was an improbably safe space for newspapers and magazines by and for lesbians.
Fascist Architecture in Rome
In Mussolini's Rome, the built environment struck a balance between the romance of the ancient past and the rationalism of avant-garde modernism.
The Canary Islands: First Stop of Imperialism
Before the New World, Europeans arrived in the Canary Islands and set the model for the enslavements, genocides, and radical ecological transformations to come.
90 Years On: The Destruction of the Institute of Sexual Science
In May 1933, Nazi-led student groups organized public burnings of "un-German" books, including those held in the library of the Institute for Sexual Science.
What Was It like to Be an Inuit in London in 1772?
London had long been described as wearying and unreadable, so it's not surprising that Inuit visitors considered it unfathomable and irrational as well.