From the Archives: Who Made the Map of the Modern Middle East?

The simple answer is: Great Britain. You want the long version? In The Makers of the Modern Middle East historians T.G. Fraser, Andrew Mango, and Robert McNamara tell the story of how today’s Middle East was created from the remains of the Ottoman Empire during the peace negotiations at the end of the First World…

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The Zimmermann Telegram-Part 2: What Did Mexico Do?

  In my last post, I wrote about the Zimmermann Telegram and the role it played in convincing the United States to enter World War I. A couple of days later as I talked to a friend about the subject, I realized I had no idea how Mexico responded. It had never occurred to me…

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Jawaharlal Nehru: Architect of Independent India

In March, 1919, India’s Imperial Legislative Council passed the repressive legislation known as the Rowlatt Acts. The new laws continued the special wartime powers of the Defense of India Act, which had been intended to protect India against wartime agitators, and aimed them at India’s nationalist movement. At the time the Rowlatt Acts were put…

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