Doing History in the Age of Downton Abbey

Julie Anne Taddeo As the most watched period drama in television history, Downton Abbey has met with popular success but not always critical acclaim. Historians in particular have criticized what they see as the series’ conservative politics and nostalgic view…

Nineteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria

Ninteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria

An account of how bureaucratic procedures created the space for political conflict and slander in nineteenth-century Ottoman Bulgaria and what can we learn from studying them. Why would a district head administrator arrest mules, or someone slander a governor with…

Helmut Khol (left) and George H. W. Bush (right)

An Intricate Transatlantic Triangle: US, UK and German Relations

Since the Federal Republic of Germany’s admission into NATO in 1955, German–American relations have been a cornerstone of transatlantic and European security and stability. Both Washington and pre-unification Bonn championed liberal democracy, free trade and fundamental civil and human rights.…

Islamic Thought in China

“There are Muslims in China?  I didn’t know that.”  Yes, indeed, there are—possibly as many as 25-30 million souls—and they constitute a fascinating segment of two vital world entities, “China” and “Islam.”  Almost half of them speak Chinese as their…

Human Rights Language in the 1890s

By Anna Clark It is widely assumed that the concept of human rights only emerged after 1945. However, I have found that the concept of human rights was deployed in Britain in the 1890s. For instance, in 1898 Hypatia Bradlaugh-Bonner…