The Political Importance of Printing Banknotes in Exile
Printing several tonnes of paper money in British exile, storing it there temporarily and shipping it back home after the end of the war – this may seem very bizarre at first. On closer...
Printing several tonnes of paper money in British exile, storing it there temporarily and shipping it back home after the end of the war – this may seem very bizarre at first. On closer...
With “mon cher ami” Paul van Zeeland, Belgian foreign politician, began a letter to the Polish political advisor Józef Retinger in 1946, in which he proposed an initial meeting to establish an association for...
As part of my doctorate on pan-African activism in London during World War II, I was fortunate enough to undertake an archival trip to West Africa in March 2020. In the following, I will...
As frequently referred to, public speeches and radio broadcasts played a significant role during the Second World War, from de Gaulles’ speech rallying the Free French over Queen Wilhelmina’s addressing the occupied Netherlands to...
The Cameroonian historian Achille Mbembe postulated that archives are “not a piece of data, but a status.”[1] He alluded to the fact that the recording of documents is a profoundly political act: decisions on...
I have always had a thing for small archives. Big national archives have many advantages, they host a vast range of collections, they have mostly long opening hours and very quick turnaround. They seem...
The George Padmore Institute is an archive and community centre with a rich collection chronicling the literary, cultural and political history of black Britain. The Institute was founded in 1991 by Caribbean activist, poet and publisher John La Rose (1927-2006).
From 1940 onwards, European exiles increasingly populated London. The general attitude towards them changed quickly: After fearing a wave of penniless migrants, the British public slowly warmed to those European exiles who made it...
In the northern hemisphere, autumn is heralding itself – and with it the start of the academic year. When the Michaelmas term (autumn trimester) began in 1925 London, a new group set out to...
At the southern side of Hyde Park, just a couple of steps from the golden Albert Memorial, lies a Polish island in the centre of London. Situated in Princes Garden next to various embassies,...
British politics are currently shaken by a scandal surrounding the „Windrush Generation“. Between the end of the Second World War and the 1960s, tens of thousands of Caribbean workers were recruited to England as...
It can feel like London during the Second World War was an exclusively male territory. This is particularly true when dealing with jurists during that time. Perhaps unsurprisingly – given the restrictions for women...
There are research projects whose primary aim is to analyse a pre-defined body of sources, e.g. a set of newspapers in a certain period, or an intellectual’s complete papers. More often though, historians begin...
Recently, the Wiener Library in London has opened the United Nations War Crimes Commissions Archives to the public. The opening has attracted publicity well beyond the academic community (as for example in this article...
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