British empire

When the Camera Was a Weapon of Imperialism. (And When It Still Is.)

Teju Cole, The New York Times Magazine, 6th February 2019 | 10 June 2019

"I first saw the photograph some years ago, online. Later, I tracked it down to its original source: “In Afric’s Forest and Jungle: Or Six Years Among the Yorubans,” a memoir published in 1899 by the Rev. R.H. Stone. It shows a crowd in what is now Nigeria, but what was then Yorubaland under British...
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My father was killed on Bloody Sunday. Britain must confront its colonial legacy

Tony Doherty, The Guardian, 16 March 2019 | 10 June 2019

"The decision to only charge one soldier is astonishing. Little England must face up to the absolute horrors of its past The decision by the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland to bring murder and attempted murder charges only against Soldier F for his alleged actions on Bloody Sunday...
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Churchill's policies contributed to 1943 Bengal famine – study

Michael Safi,The Guardian, 29th March 2019 | 10 June 2019

"Study is first time weather data has been used to argue wartime policies exacerbated famine The Bengal famine of 1943 was the only one in modern Indian history not to occur as a result of serious drought, according to a study that provides scientific backing for arguments that Churchill-era British...
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Bloody Sunday and how the British empire came home

Adam Ramsay, Open Democracy 15th March 2019 | 10 June 2019

"The events of 30 January 1972 in Northern Ireland weren’t an aberration. Britain has been in the business of killing dissenters across its former empire for decades....."
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India’s Amritsar massacre bore the ‘made in Ireland’ mark

Ronan McGreevy, The Irish Times, 13th April 2019 | 10 June 2019

"After a long and tempestuous life in the service of British imperialism, Sir Michael O’Dwyer had got used to a quiet life. He endured years of recriminations over the Amritsar massacre which took place on April 13th, 1919. The episode in which British Indian troops opened fire on peaceful...
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Row over bid to extend centenary events to cover Ireland and India

Ben Quinn, The Guardian, 1st April 2019 | 10 June 2019

"Government board chair blocks effort to mark events in which Britain committed atrocities Members of the government’s advisory board on the first world war centenary are at loggerheads over extending the commemorations to mark politically challenging events such as the Irish war of independence and...
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Oxford college to investigate its own role in colonialism

Richard Adams, The Guardian, 21st March 2019 | 10 June 2019

"An Oxford college is to examine its contribution to creating and maintaining Britain’s colonial empire, in a pioneering effort to crowdsource and “decolonialise” its own imperialist past. St John’s College is advertising for a new academic post whose appointee will work on a research project named...
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Breaking the silence on partition and British Colonial history (Published 31 July 2017)

Reflections 70 years after the partition of the Indian sub-continent | 11 October 2018

Many British south Asian families were caught up in the violence of 1947 when Britain partitioned India. Seventy years on, some are telling their stories for the first time. Kavita Puri is the editor of Our World and presenter of Partition Voices on BBC Radio 4
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Britain should stop trying to pretend that its empire was benevolent

May 13, 2016 | 10 October 2018

Interesting 2016 article from Alan Lester, Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex on Britain's attitude to empire and the racist underpinnings of the view that the empire was benevolent. Published in The Conversation.
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