In the 20th century, governments considered the “total abolition” of passports as an important goal and discussed the issue in several international conferences.
Many of HG Wells’s futuristic prophecies have come true, but the one on which his heart was most set – the establishment of a world state – remains unfulfilled.
The centenary of the first world war is being memorialised around the world. But as it fades from living memory, our children’s education sits uneasily with the uncritical demands of commemoration.
A hundred years ago today, the Battle of the Somme began. This conflict, in which a million men died in order to move the front lines about six miles, spelled the end of courage as a cornerstone of masculine identity.
For 100 years, the Easter Rising has occupied center stage in the memory making of republican Ireland. But the role of Irish soldiers in World War I had been all but forgotten – until now.
Irish participation in World War I has been surrounded by a form of “collective amnesia” – largely because of the part the war played in the Easter Rising.
From crossing cultural barriers with a cake, to starvation used as a brutal tool of war, Australian soldiers’ letters and diaries reveal an urgently important relationship with what they ate.
When Australians went to the Western Front, language failed them. So they invented slanguage: a mix of slang, French words and creative swearing that, among other things, gave us the word “Aussie”.
The rise of Islamic State and its declaration of the caliphate can be read as part of a wider story that has unfolded since the formation of modern nation states in the Muslim world.
How far back in history does one have to go to find the roots of the so-called Islamic State? The first article in our series on the genesis of the terrorist outfit considers some fundamentals.