09/01/2020
Issue 35 - Fractured Nations
We are looking for articles for the Manchester Historian's 35th issue. Could you write for us? The theme this issue is Fractured Nations.
Below, we have some suggestions for articles you could write for Issue 35 of the Manchester Historian. These briefs are meant to be a starting point from which you can develop your article. Some questions to think about are, what would you like to cover within the broad topic of the brief? What will your argument be? What are the key historical debates surrounding the topic?
What we are really interested in exploring this issue is divided peoples. How can you have bitterly split, divided people living together in the same nation? What happens when it doesn’t work? Along these lines, we have article briefs below on the former Yugoslavia, the divide between Hutu and Tutsi peoples, the Partition of India and Pakistan, among other topics. We want to explore what it means to be a nation, and how people have been brought together, as well as how nations have split.
To reserve an article, email us with a short outline of what you plan to write. [email protected]
We provide these briefs in order to give writers some ideas about the sorts of articles they could write, but this list is not exclusive. If you have an idea for an article that’s not on the list below, we would love you to write it for us. Email us a short outline of your idea at [email protected]
///Modern Western History///
-We would like to include an article about tensions in the former Yugoslavia.
Some potential article topics could include:
Causes and consequences of the breakup of Yugoslavia [RESERVED]
Ethnic tensions/relations under Tito: what kept the country together?
The origins of ethnic tensions in the region: the Ottoman empire in Balkans
-The origins of Scottish nationalism: was the scottish nation manufactured?
-Waves of change - a history of the Feminist Movement in the USA [RESERVED]
-Newly unified, but freshly divided: How the American civil war led to new divides in the country, between the north and south, and between black and white populations.
-Racial Othering in Windrush Generation Britain
-Conceptions of Race in Nazi Germany [RESERVED]
-What was the role of the Great Irish Famine in Irish Nationalist movements, 1870-1923?
-From Kelso Cochrane to Mark Duggan: the history of racist police violence in the UK [RESERVED]
-We would like an article on the Spanish Civil War or Spain under France.
There are many angles you could take, one possibility is: An exploration of the uneasy alliance between Carlists and Nationalists during and after the Spanish Civil War
-Racist stereotyping or the start of minority representation: The portrayal of race in British kitchen sink television shows. [RESERVED]
///Early Modern and Medieval History///
-Christianity as a disrupting force: forced conversion on Europe’s frontiers
You could examine how Christendom expanded its borders (e.g. Saxony, Hungary, Spain, Scandinavia), and how this affected/destroyed/bolstered indigenous cultures
-The 30 Years War & the Treaty of Westphalia
Explore the religious differences which led to the most destructive war in Central Europe until the World Wars, with eight million casualties
Or explore how the Treaty of Westphalia brought this conflict to an end
-Guelphs and Ghibellines
Did these labels contribute to the creation of civic identities, or were they a hindrance? Were they used as an excuse for the concentration of civic power?
-The Frankish civil wars:
Examine the effects of the dynastic struggles within Francia and its successor states.
Consider: ethnic divisions, the Pope, rules of inheritance etc.
-Political divisions caused by the growth of Protestantism in the Holy Roman Empire
///African, Islamic, and Arabic History///
-We would like an article on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Topics could include:
The holy land: how religion has fueled a history of conflict
Jewish and democratic: a structural tension at the heart of Israel? [RESERVED]
Arab citizenship in the Jewish state
-Dividing the Levant: effects of the Anglo-French Mandates in the Middle East
-Did the failures of Egypt and/or the Syrian Ba’athist states in the Arab-Israeli Wars facilitate the growth of so-called Islamic fundamentalism? [RESERVED]
-The origins of the Sunni/Shia divide within Islam [RESERVED]
-How the Tutsi/Hutu divide defines the Great Lakes region in Africa
-Biafran independence in Nigeria. Topics could include:
The tensions of united Nigeria and the causes of the civil war
Aftermath of the war: the subsequent oppression of the Igbo people.
Biafra under blockade: how the British and Nigerian governments starved 2 million people [RESERVED]
-Causes and consequences of Eritrean independence from Ethiopia
-Bantustans in divided South Africa: how false ‘countries’ were imposed from above, and their effects
-We are also interested in pitches on post-empire national creation in Africa.
///Non-Western, American History///
-An article on the Spanish American wars of independence. Topics could include:
Imperial loyalty during the Spanish American wars of independence: how the symbol of the King was used by both sides
Villages divided: native American loyalties in the Spanish American wars of independence
The creation of distinct nations out of newly independent Spanish America
-Dividing colonial subjects: the effects of the Spanish American caste system
-Reservations, seizures, and treaties: the politics of land in American/Native American relations 1831-1934
///Asian History///
-An article on the Caste system in India. Topics could include:
The origins of the caste system and the role of British views of caste in shaping it
Separate electorates and reservations for Dalits: ending oppression or creating division?
The changing nature of caste loyalties and practices in modern, urbanising India
-An article on the Partition of India and Pakistan. Topics could include:
Two nation theory and the political and ideological steps to partition.
Communal violence and ethnic cleansing in the run up and during partition.
A history of relations between Pakistan and India.
Violence against women during the partition of India.
Gandhi, Patel and the Muslim League: the politics of partition.
-The Comfort Women and their legacy in Korean-Japanese relations [RESERVED]
-An article on the Vietnam war. Some possible topics to tackle:
-Should we consider the Vietnam War a colonial, cold or civil war? [RESERVED]
-Was the fall of Saigon inevitable? Was an independent South Vietnam ever a viable nation?
-The rise and fall of Chinese warlordism
Or possibly: The rise of Chinese nationalism out of a divided, militarised nation
-How the ‘queue’, or braid, became a symbol of gender identity rather than a symbol of Manchi oppression under the Qing dynasty in China
-The use of Khmer identity and medieval history by the Khmer rouge
-Should the Korean War be seen as the result of a failure of Korean nationalism, or the hubris of two competing imperial powers?
-Should we consider the Zheng He voyages an imperialist project?
///Ancient History and Pre-History///
-Persians in the Greek imagination, before and after the Greco-Persian War.
-‘The unity of mankind’: The debate over Alexander the Great’s philosophy, and the divisions between the Greeks, Persians and Macedonians
-Civil Wars of the Roman republic (Julius Caesar + Pompey/Octavian + Mark Anthony)
-‘Who were the plebs?’ - debates over the origins of the separation of Roman citizens into patricians, plebs, and possibly clientes [RESERVED]
-Roman Successor states in the early middle ages
Or The breakup of the Western Roman Empire
/// We are also interested in publishing book reviews. Pitches for reviews of recent history publications, and older important works and welcome. Some of our suggestions based on the theme of Fractured Nations are:
Edward Said - Orientalism
Benedict Anderson - Imagined Communities
Akala - Natives: Race and Class in the ruins of Empire [RESERVED]
Michael Billig - Banal Nationalism
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