history, books, lifestyle
At the heart of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities is the insight that one of the most powerful forces in modern history, nationalism, is built on imagination. Published in 1983, this book has become one of the most influential works in the study of nationalism, yet its arguments remain as urgent and contested today as they… Continue reading The Past Through Pages: Imagined Communities, Benedict Anderson
In this post, I am going to be analysing Richard J. Aldrich’s Policing the Past: Official History, Secrecy and British Intelligence Since 1945 article from the English Historical Review. I found this article very interesting as it examines intelligence history while also asking bigger questions about who gets to write history, how secrecy shapes archives,… Continue reading The Past Through Pages: Policing the Past, Richard J. Aldrich
This post is about John Tosh's The Pursuit of History, specifically Chapters 9-11. Within these chapters, he tackles three key themes in modern historiography: the cultural turn, the rise of gender and postcolonial history, and the use of memory and the spoken word. These themes particularly stood out to me as they can all apply… Continue reading The Past Through Pages: The Pursuit of History, John Tosh
Instead of a usual post in this series, I have decided to attach an essay of mine answering the question 'Was the Partition of India inevitable?' As this essay covers the arguments of many books, articles and historians on a variety of different topics in relation to the causes Partition, I have been able to… Continue reading The Past Through Pages: Causes of the Partition of India
To bring greater variety to the material I’m exploring in my Past Through Pages series, this post compares two articles on the Cold War. This allows me to explore how historians have shifted in their approach to the Cold War over time, moving beyond the traditional East-West divide and towards a more global appreciation of… Continue reading The Past Through Pages: The Global Cold War
As part of this series exploring 20th century history, with a focus on espionage, I have decided to explore the story of Adolf Tolkachev. He was one of the most important CIA assets during the Cold War, and like my previous posts, I have also read a book to guide my research, "The Billion Dollar… Continue reading The Past Through Pages: Adolf Tolkachev
Rather than analysing a book about a certain historical story like the other posts in this series, this post draws inspiration from a podcast I recently listened to. The podcast about the life and espionage work of Noor Inayat Khan, a female British-Indian SOE agent during WWII, sparked my interest in her story. 'The Spy… Continue reading The Past Through Pages: Noor Inayat Khan
Rating - ☆☆☆☆/5 Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is a beautiful piece of historical fiction, allowing readers to reflect on the resilience of the human spirit through the lens of WWII. The book explores the complexities of war through the two vastly different but eventually interconnected protagonists' stories. Marie-Laure and her father flee Nazi-occupied Paris… Continue reading All The Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
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