With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility (and Great Reward): British Approaches to Famine Relief in Bengal and Asia Minor, 1873-75.
By Emma Wordsworth Food, despite being both a biological necessity and a symbolic cultural touchstone, has only recently been recognised as a major historical force. As historian David Arnold persuasively argued in 1988, “food was, and continues to be, power in a most basic, tangible, and inescapable form”.[1] Certainly, in the early 1870s, the issue […]
‘Death Knows No Colour’: The Forgotten African Soldiers of WWII
By Lauren Brown. ‘To the people death knows no colour, and, as such, rates of pay should be adjusted in that spirit.’[i] This statement, featured in the West African Pilot in 1941, encapsulates a key issue faced by British African soldiers who fought during the Second World War. It is an issue that has still […]
Iranian-US Relations: Remembering the Origins of a Tense Relationship for a More Peaceful Future
By Sami Risk. As we approach the 2020 US presidential election, we may consider one of the more controversial acts committed by the Trump administration – the unilateral retreat from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on 8th May 2018. Not only did it bring into question the legal principle pacta sunt servanda – […]
A Pen as Mighty as his Sword: Santa Cruz de Marcenado’s Military, Diplomatic and Literary Career
By Pelayo Fernández García. Don Álvaro de Navia Osorio, third Marquis of Santa Cruz de Marcenado was born in Puerto de Vega (Asturias, Spain) on December 19, 1684. [1] His family influences allowed him to become maestre de campo (later colonel) of the Principality of Asturias’ tercio (later regiment), shortly before the beginning of the […]
Literature, Music and Fashion: Cosmopolitan Kampala in the 1960s
By Anna Adima. Asian-Ugandan-hosted literary salon; South African-owned nightclub; glittering social scene – for Uganda’s multiracial elite in the 1960s, Kampala offered ample opportunities for socialising and entertainment. Unlike Nairobi, the capital city of neighbouring Kenya where Britain had established a settler colony and an accompanying apartheid system, Kampala was touted as a liberal city […]
Visualising Gender Subversion: Photographic Counter-Memories in Pinochet’s Chile
By Anna Nicol. Art frequently operates as a “vehicle of memory”, adding tangibility to past events. Sociologist Elizabeth Jelin coined the phrase to refer to how cultural products connect ‘individual subjectivities, societal or collective belonging, and the embodiment of the past.’[1] Artistic mediums are particularly innovative at creating space for counter-memories and marginalised narratives under […]
Race and Power in Mexican-Japanese Relations: Rethinking Trans-Pacific Migrations
By Jessica A. Fernández de Lara Harada Mexico and Japan share histories of empire and colonisation. Formerly known as New Spain, Mexico was colonised by Spain from 1521 to 1821 and, after independence, the US occupied half of its territory and gradually increased its economic and military influence. Following 250 years of self-isolation, in 1854 […]
A Scottish Conquistador and Global Scots in the Sixteenth Century
By Joseph Wagner The study of Scottish interactions with the world outside of Europe in the seventeenth century has greatly expanded over the past twenty-five years. It has been galvanised by moving away from a focus on Scotland’s ‘national’ attempts at empire-building, such as the unsuccessful attempts to colonise Nova Scotia in the 1620s and […]
(Opinion Post) ‘We Gave them the Railways!’: History and Heritage in the time of BLM
By Nandini Bhattacharya. A difficult summer overlain with the tragedies and vicissitudes of a global pandemic has nonetheless provided moments of hope and unbridled joy. The latter related to the Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion protests in Britain. Of the many soul-stirring moments that BLM raised for me this season, the removal at Bristol […]
Scottish Settlers in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego: Sheep Farming Capitalisms in a South American Frontier
By Nicolás Gómez Baeza. Between 1888-89, John Hamilton, Henry Jamieson, John McLean and Thomas Saunders, among others, participated in the so-called “big sheep-ride” [“gran arreo”] through southern Patagonia.[1] Who were they? Three were born in Scotland, worked as shepherds in the Falkland Islands, and became landowners and businessmen in southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego; […]
The Oldest News: Content in the Earliest Newsbooks of Foreign Affairs.
By Rory Bannerman If you tear through an issue of The Economist or flick straight to the “World” or “Global” sections of your preferred broadsheet, you are taking part in a long tradition of consuming news of events beyond our borders. In Britain, the first publications devoted to relaying foreign affairs were published in London […]
Exits before Brexit: Sub-State Separations from the European Union, 1962–2012
By Curtis Large Brexit, insofar as it represents separation from the European Union (EU) and its predecessors, is not “an unprecedented journey”;[1] between 1962 and 2012, four withdrawals occurred. Exercised at the meso-regional level, between the tiers of member state and local governance,[2] these characterise an overlooked phenomenon. Separation was first observed as French Algeria […]
Welcome to the Scottish Centre for Global History
The Scottish Centre for Global History is a research centre and public history space for post-graduates and academics from around the world to share their ideas and research in Global History.
Through our Global History Blog and Podcast, our platform focuses on the development of Global History; the democratisation of the field; and stimulating debate. Additionally, our Global History Resources provide researchers with a variety of resources to aid their research, such as our repository of online archives and databases.
We are flexible in how contributors would like to approach any potential project with us, for more information see our Write For Us and Podcast pages.
The University of Dundee
Internally, the centre brings together members of the School of Humanities and other academic schools at the University of Dundee with interests in Global History. Our work spans the globe from India to Argentina, from Canada to South Africa and range from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. For more information see our About Us page.