Indian Paramilitary troopers stand guard in the city center Srinagar, Kashmir, India

How Did Kashmir’s 72-Year-Old Conflict Begin?

The proposal to partition British India along religious lines was put forward as early as 1940. The resulting constitutional provision endured until 2019.
Che Guevara

Che Guevara

In 1964, 5 years after the end of the Cuban revolution, Che Guevara wrote for an academic journal. Read the Cuban leader in his own words.
Richard Nixon at the Great Wall of China

Why Did Nixon Burn the China Hands?

Nixon targeted Foreign Service officers who served in China in the 1940s as communist sympathizers and "fellow travelers." Then he opened trade relations.
Pedestrians & Vendors On Pottinger Street, Hong Kong, 1946

Hong Kong Was Formed as a City of Refugees

The story of Hong Kong, one of the most densely populated places on Earth, can't be separated from its international situation.
Photograph: A Mohammadan praying towards Mecca when the Miezzin calls from a nearby mosque, with a Butane Gas reservoir in the background. circa 1950

The Jim Crow Roots of the U.S.-Saudi Arabia Relationship

Americans started pouring into Saudi Arabia in the 1940s to develop the oil fields. They brought their ideas about segregation with them.
A German man in lederhosen holding a beer stein

How Should German Teachers Approach Oktoberfest?

Americans have some pretty specific and limited stereotypes about German culture. The way teachers address topics like Oktoberfest can make a difference.
Scene in The Bahamas, 1884

The Saltwater Railroad

Throughout the 19th century, enslaved people attempted to escape from the U.S. to the Bahamas, across what became known as the "Saltwater Railroad."
The cover of Gharbzadegi by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad

Progress Is Not the Same as Westernization

Jalal Al-e Ahmad, a political and literary writer in pre-revolutionary Iran, had ideas about how his country could modernize in its own, non-Western way.
Three women wearing corsets

How Colonialism Shaped Body Shaming

When did heaviness and curviness in women become connected with the idea of "savagery"? It has a lot to do with 19th-century imperialist world views.