What might the trip of Birgitta Dahl to the meet Amílcar Cabral and the PAIGC liberation movement reveal about the motivations of transnational solidarity in the era of decolonisation?
There is a persistent myth that decolonial regimes across Africa were “corrupt.” The Savundra Affair reveals the networks of global finance that were, and are, part of this corruption.
Child marriage is often conceived of as embedded in the past, but there is little attention to its historical context. Rhian Keyse explores how this obscures the shifting dynamics and social meanings of such practices.
How does the Mau Mau Memorial Monument depict women's involvement in the anti-colonial Mau Mau uprising? How can women's own words and memories add to this important history? Evalyne Wanjiru explores in this piece.
In 1947 The Abeokuta Women's Union staged an influential tax revolt. How can understanding these women's sense of time, including their vision for the future, increase our historical understanding?
As an ongoing commissioning priority, History Workshop Online seeks articles on the radical histories of Africa and the African diaspora on all periods, regions and themes.
Following the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's apology for the non-commemoration of Black and Asian soldiers in the First World War, John Siblon explores how and why their memory was deliberately hidden by Britain.
What powers of legitimacy do physical representations of the past hold? Duncan McLean explores the journey and repatriation of a radical object, the Obelisk of Axum, from Abyssinia to Italy to Ethiopia - its return seemingly affirming…
Creative writing is not a conventional primary source for historians of eastern Africa. However, examining marginalised actors’ histories can be invaluable in filling the gaps left by traditional archives.
From a fragile piece of printed tissue, Martin Plaut uncovers the forgotten story of a massive demonstration on the eve of the First World War, protesting the brutal deportation from South Africa to Britain of nine trades union leaders who…
The oldest surviving book owned by English speakers was a book made in North Africa. Alison Hudson traces how these radical fragments reveal that immigrants and cultural exchange have always been fundamental to British economies, culture,…
The Wretched of the Earth was the final work of Frantz Fanon, a fearless critic of colonialism and a key figure in Algeria’s struggle for independence. This new history of the 'Third World' depicted the unresolved and open-ended nature of…
John Marnell on MaThoko’s old post box, which played an important role as a key communication node for the nascent LGBT movement in South Africa during the 1980s and 1990s.
Martin Plaut on the newly-released documents at the National Archive at Kew that reveal that Mrs Thatcher did not waver in her opposition to South Africa's white supremacist leader P.W Botha’s racial policies
Radical Objects: A menu of a meal at the House of Commons in London in 1909, hosted by the Labour Party leader James Keir Hardie, with Labour MPs and a South African deputation led by W. P. Schreiner
Dylan Gray writes about the documentary film he has made FIRE IN THE BLOOD which tells the story of how Western pharmaceutical companies and governments blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the countries of Africa and the global south…
Martin Plaut, until recently the Africa Editor at BBC World Service News, tells the story of a remarkable cache of interviews with African soldiers in the Second World War, which has just been deposited with the Imperial War Museum
Keith Breckenridge on the relationship between the turmoil in the South African mining industry and the ongoing importance of structural poverty and inequalities of life in South Africa after the end of Apartheid
Richard Drayton, Rhodes Professor of Imperial History, Kings College London, on recent news that the British government has acknowledged the existence of a 'secret archive' from 37 former colonies, bought back to Britain after the colonies…
