A Postcolonial Preah Vihear
The debate over who “owns” Preah Vihear dates to the early twentieth century, when the French government drew the border between Cambodia and Siam (Thailand).
Could “Rosie the Riveter” Be Chinese American?
Despite having their citizenship withheld before the war, Chinese American women in the Bay Area made significant contributions to the wartime labor force.
Chimney Sweeps and the Turn Against Child Labor
The slowly expanding protections of “climbing boys” reveal the changing attitudes to child labor in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
A Village Responds to Disaster
When a tsunami struck American Samoa in 2009, the key to a swift response was Indigenous institutions that drew on local knowledge and community training.
Call the Midwives—Assuming Any Are Left
While midwife-attended deliveries are the norm in the United Kingdom, they’re the exception in the United States. Time was, this difference wasn’t so stark.
Chains of Credit: The Entrepreneurial Advantage of Slavery
As the financial history of Maryland shows, slavery represented extraordinarily liquid wealth and outsized political power.
The Rise of Police Torture in New Orleans
Even as crime rates dropped in the 1930s, the police of New Orleans stepped up their use of torture to obtain confessions from Black Americans accused of crimes.
The Fight for Native American Voting Rights
Despite the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, Native American activists have had to repeatedly take their fight for voting rights to Congress.
Boven Digoel, the Prison Camp in the “Siberia of Indonesia”
The number of ethnic Chinese incarcerated in Boven Digoel in the 1920s was low, but the New Guinea colonial prison nonetheless shaped Sino-Malay literature.
In the Palm of Your Hand
Palm reading, also known as palmistry or chiromancy, has fascinated us as a practice and a party trick for centuries.