Imperialism
Déjà Vu All Over Again?: Attack on the British Garrison in Kabul, 1879
As I believe I’ve mentioned before, the British government in India was always paranoid about the possibility of Russian influence on the northern border of Afghanistan. (Some of the most paranoid even thought the Russians were behind the Indian Mutiny of 1857. *) In 1878, the amir of Afghanistan pushed British buttons when he accepted…
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White Gold: Sugar in the New World
In The Sugar Barons: Family, Corruption, Empire, and War in the West Indies Matthew Parker, author of Panama Fever and Monte Cassino: The Hardest Fought Battle of World War II, uses the rise and fall of the sugar dynasties of the West Indies as a framework for the intertwined histories of sugar, slavery, the industrial…
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History on Display: Tipu’s Tiger
“Tipu’s Tiger” is one of the most popular exhibits at the Victoria and Albert Museum. For generations, British school children and American tourists have lined up to watch the large mechanical tiger maul a fallen British gentleman. Today the toy is too fragile to operate, but once upon a time the tiger roared and its…
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