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In Plain Sight: Black Lives Matter and Italy’s Colonial Past

The shooting of George Floyd sent shockwaves across the world, as protests against police brutality, racism, and symbols of slavery and colonial oppression escalated rapidly, often resulting in physical violence. In this article, Marianna Griffini explores the repercussions of the Black Lives Matter movement on Italy’s vexed relationship with its colonial past.

In the wake of the killing of […]

August 25th, 2020|Uncategorized|2 Comments|

Hafez al-Assad’s Legacy and the Syrian Civil War

In 2010 the Arab Spring and subsequent armed rebellions destabilised authoritarian regimes in the Middle-East and North Africa, causing the downfall of many long-standing dictators and oligarchs. Although Syria was engulfed by the movement and the Civil War that followed, unlike his counterparts, President Bashar al-Assad survived the onslaught and has since regained control of most of the nation. […]

August 10th, 2020|Uncategorized|1 Comment|

Troubled Waters: Old Threats in the East China Sea

In recent years, tensions in the South China Sea have dominated security concerns in the Pacific. In this piece, Tenny Kristiana discusses threats in the East China Sea that have slowly but surely been developing in the shadow of its southern counterpart. With close proximity to Mainland China, North and South Korea and Taiwan, Okinawa’s strategic importance has only […]

July 24th, 2020|Uncategorized|1 Comment|

‘The Revenge of Plassey’: Football in the British Raj

Colonialism manifested itself in all walks of lives of the subjugated populace. In this article Abinand Lagisetti muses on the legacy of football, a sport imported from Imperial Britain to the Raj in India, and retraces its journey from an exclusive recreational activity to an avenue of resistance for non-white communities in the Indian sub-continent.

Sport is largely considered to […]

July 20th, 2020|Uncategorized|1 Comment|

“There is no Ukraine”: Fact-Checking the Kremlin’s Version of Ukrainian History

The notion that Ukraine is not a country, but a historical part of Russia, appears to be deeply ingrained in the minds of Russian leadership. Competing interpretations of history have turned into a key ingredient of the deepening dispute between Russia and the West and a subject that Putin in particular appears to feel unusually passionate about. In this […]

Risks of Improvidence: COVID-19 Exemplifies the Problems in International Governance of Disaster Risk

In the international governance of disaster which has emerged since the early twentieth century, governments have been reluctant to invest in disaster preparedness. In this article, Dr Lukas Schemper discusses the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the historical and continuing problem of lack of action in preparing for national and global disasters. 

 

“Why We Fail to Prepare for Disasters”

Several […]

Controlling the Gulf: US Policy and the Military Incompetence of Imperial Iran and Saudi Arabia

US efforts to secure the vast oil resources of the Persian Gulf exacerbated the military incompetence of Imperial Iran and Saudi Arabia. In this article, by examining the military incompetence of Saudi Arabia in Yemen and Imperial Iran in Dhofar (Oman), Jack Sargent outlines the failure of the US to encourage meaningful reforms.

 

US engagement with the Persian Gulf in […]

From Anschluss to VE-Day 2020: Britain’s Changing Attitudes Towards Austria

In the 1930s, a period fraught with diplomatic tension and uncertainty, the Chamberlain government was unwilling to go to bat to protect Austria from Nazi encroachment. However, from within the British Legation in Vienna, dissenting voices emerged who argued that Britain should take a stronger stance to safeguard Austrian interests. Reflecting upon Dominic Raab’s VE Day address to Austria, […]

Imagined Communities in an Age of Global Pandemic

In Benedict Anderson’s ‘Imagined Communities’, he argued that the novel and the newspaper were the key mediums of the imagined community. However, in our increasingly connected and globalised world, the internet provides us with a shared digital culture that allows us to communicate with one another across the globe. In the latest LSE International History blog, Trinity College Dublin PhD […]

A ‘Successful’ Diplomacy: The US Occupation of Japan, 1945-52

In 1945, USA occupied Japan following the East Asian Empire’s unconditional surrender. This occupation was accompanied with political and social reforms. In this article, Tenny Kristiana examines the diplomatic negotiations between the two nations, and how domestic politics and the evolving international order impacted the creation of a democratic government in Japan.

 

Diplomacy on a global stage has an extended […]

April 23rd, 2020|Uncategorized|0 Comments|