Twentieth Century
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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Moscow Nights
In 1958 the Cold War was at its height–or perhaps its depths. Think Sputnik, Krushchev’s overthrow of Stalin, backyard bomb shelters, and bomb drills in schools.* Not to mention Elvis Presley’s induction into the army–a Cold War weapon of a different kind. Culture was as much of a battlefield as space. In April, Soviet Russia…
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Déjà Vu All Over Again: Building a Wall
Last week while we all blew noisemakers and wore party hats to celebrate the the 100th anniversary of America’s National Park Service, we let another anniversary slip by with less fanfare. On August 26, 1961, the Berlin Wall became more than just a barbed wire and cinder block barricade. If you want a vivid and…
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