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Global history

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future

Animals and humans Anthropology Archaeology Automation and robotics Cities Demography and migration Economic history Economics Education Environmental history Fairness and equality Future of technology Gender Global history History History of technology Human rights and justice Information and communication Making Nations and empires Politics and government Poverty and development Progress and modernity Public health Race and ethnicity Religion The ancient world The environment The future War and peace Work

Explore more Society

Engraving of a classroom with children sewing, some highlighted in red, teachers stand at the front with windows above.

videoIllness and disease

Humanity eradicated smallpox 45 years ago. It’s a story worth remembering

25 minutes

Medieval painting of soldiers in armour on a boat and horseback near a fortress with Cyrillic script above.

essayGlobal history

Vikings on the Silk Roads

The Norse ravaged much of Europe for centuries. They were also cosmopolitan explorers who followed trade winds into the Far East

Neil Price

Black and white photo of a person in glasses and military attire standing in front of the Hollywood sign.

videoArt

When East met West in the images of an overlooked, original photographer

9 minutes

An urban slum with people, horses and goats amidst debris, shacks and informal structures in the background.

essayPoverty and development

Raising the threshold

The World Bank’s poverty line is inaccurate and out of date – an error that obscures the feebleness of market solutions

Attrishu Bordoloi

Vintage sepia photo of a group of soldiers in hats and uniforms posed with a US flag.

essayWar and peace

Could conquest return?

It’s only a century since US diplomats first persuaded the world that it’s wrong for countries to annex their neighbours

Kerry Goettlich

Aerial photo of an archaeological excavation site in a barren landscape with workers digging and examining the area.

videoArchaeology

What’s an ancient Greek brick doing in a Sumerian city? An archeological investigation

16 minutes

Painting of a bustling 17th-century market square with people, horses and a church, surrounded by historic buildings and boats on a waterway.

essayGlobal history

There are no pure cultures

All of our religions, stories, languages and norms were muddled and mixed through mobility and exchange throughout history

Inanna Hamati-Ataya

Vintage sepia photo of a Black man in a buttoned coat against a plain background with decorative border.

videoHistory

From Afghanistan to Virginia – the Muslims who fought in the American Civil War

22 minutes

Black and white photo of British and German First World War soldiers wearing winter uniforms and hats, one with a cigarette, looking at the camera.

videoWar and peace

A frontline soldier’s moving account of the fabled ‘Christmas truce’ of 1914

12 minutes

Photo of an elderly man with a bald head and moustache wearing a suit and tie, smiling against a light-coloured, blurred background.

videoWar and peace

‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary

12 minutes

A woman with glasses and a colourful African headscarf is holding a child. They are outdoors in a rocky, hilly landscape. The path ahead appears scattered with small white stones.

videoHuman rights and justice

When a burial for slave trade victims is unearthed, a small island faces a reckoning

29 minutes

President Eisenhower and Kwame Nkrumah talking. Nkrumah is wearing traditional African attire and pointing at Eisenhower, who is wearing a suit.

essayGlobal history

The route to progress

Anticolonial modernity was founded upon the fight for liberation from communists, capitalists and imperialists alike

Frank Gerits

People decorating a school courtyard with green and yellow bunting.

videoArchitecture

West Africa was once an architectural laboratory. Is it time for a revival?

12 minutes

A close-up of a weathered, rusty metal plate attached to a deteriorating wooden surface with bolts, showing corrosion and peeling layers.

essayGlobal history

One ship, many stories

How a single, unglamorous, workaday merchant vessel tells the history of the 19th-century world in many violent chapters

Boyd Cothran & Adrian Shubert

A vintage illustration of a steam train crossing a bridge over a river with a town and mountains in the background, surrounded by lush greenery.

essayGlobal history

Reconstructed hemisphere

In the 19th century, civil wars tore apart the US, Mexico and Argentina. Then came democracy’s fight against reaction

Evan C Rothera

Medieval painting of a bearded man in ornate armour on horseback, hunting in a forest. He holds a spear as his horse rears over a slain animal.

essayGlobal history

The Asian world order

Before modern Europe existed there was a grand, interconnected political world, rich in scientific and artistic exchange

Ayşe Zarakol

An intricate, colourful Persian artwork depicting a central figure on a throne, with four attendants surrounded by floral and animal motifs.

essayHistory of technology

A silken web

From its mythic beginnings in a Chinese garden, the story of silk is a window into how weaving has shaped human history

Peter Frankopan, Marie-Louise Nosch & Feng Zhao

Medieval illustration of a crowned figure, holding a sceptre, wearing a blue cloak over an intricately patterned robe, seated against a parchment background.

videoReligion

Hear from blasphemes, sceptics and free-thinkers in this ‘tour of medieval unbelief’

52 minutes

Many figures in traditional dress are gathered beneath a structure from which hang paper lists. In the foreground are horses. The colours are muted with age

essayEducation

The exam that broke society

Keju, China’s incredibly difficult civil service test, strengthened the state at the cost of freedom and creativity

Yasheng Huang

Illustration of a smiling figure with a topknot, red cheeks, and a small goatee. The background features abstract, pastel-blue and light-brown brush strokes.

videoGlobal history

Meet the jesters who’ve spoken truth to power around the globe and across centuries

5 minutes

A black and white photo showing a group of men in traditional Middle Eastern attire, with two men seated in the foreground and several standing behind.

essayReligion

Praying in shoes

The Sunni movement of Salafism was born at the beginning of the 20th century, with the goal of modelling life on the 7th

Aaron Rock-Singer

Japanese and five-colour flags waving in the foreground with a sunset and two silhouetted figures on a horizon in the background, text in Japanese on the right.

essayNations and empires

Settler colonialism

Displacing and destroying peoples by colonisation is not just a historical Western evil but a global and contemporary one

Lachlan McNamee

A man in a uniform stands in a garden filled with tall green plants and yellow flowers, smoking a cigarette.

essayNations and empires

Dream of the Russian tropics

Imperial Russia had little access to the bountiful tropics that other empires enjoyed. So it created its own in the Caucasus

Oleksandr Polianichev

Illustration of a historic round pavilion with ornate statues and columns, surrounded by trees, with people in period attire nearby.

videoArchitecture

Tour the European architecture that dreamed of a wondrous, fictitious China

16 minutes