Menu
Idea

colonialism

414
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Working-class Irish family.

What Made the Irish Famine So Deadly

The Great Hunger was a modern event, shaped by the belief that the poor are the authors of their own misery and that the market must be obeyed at all costs.
by Fintan O’Toole via The New Yorker on March 10, 2025
A drawing of a Viking ship approaching Greenland.

The Long Struggle for Greenland

Throughout its history, the vast Arctic island has been viewed by competing powers as a strategic prize and geopolitical asset.
by Paul Lay via Engelsberg Ideas on January 8, 2025
A line of workmen drilling.

A Prison the Size of the State, A Police to Control the World

Two new books examine how colonial logic has long been embedded within US carceral systems.
by Marisol LeBrón via Public Books on December 17, 2024
Students at an Indian boarding school.

Acknowledgment as Denialism: The Myth of Reparations in the US

What is an apology from the President of the United States worth if reparations do not include cessation of settler colonial violence?
by Ja'loni Owens via Scalawag on December 11, 2024
A group of indigenous Pacific Islanders forced to work on a sugar plantation, with a white overseer in the background.

How ‘Blackbirders’ Forced Tens of Thousands of Pacific Islanders Into Slavery After the Civil War

The decline of Southern industries paved the way for plantations in Fiji and Australia, where victims of “blackbirding” endured horrific working conditions.
by Shoshi Parks via Smithsonian on December 5, 2024
John Montgomery’s Notice to George W. Gray, November 26, 1855.

“Acts of Lawless Violence”: The Office of Indian Affairs, and the Coming of the Civil War in Kansas

The question should not be if settler colonialism factored into the history of the Civil War but how and to what extent.
by Paul Barba via Muster on July 17, 2024
American Indians outside of Fort Laramie.

“Invasion is a Structure Not an Event.” On Settler Colonialism and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

When he reflected on the consequences of empire, Conrad saw no logic or teleology. He saw mayhem. There is no surety in "Heart of Darkness."
by Robert G. Parkinson via Literary Hub on May 29, 2024
Boys at Kamloops Indian Residential School, probably before the 1920s.

We Must Not Forget What Happened to the World’s Indigenous Children

Thousands of Indigenous children suffered and died in residential ‘schools’ around the world. Their stories must be heard.
by Steve Minton via Aeon on July 21, 2023
Puerto Rican protests for statehood
partner

The U.S. Having Territories Perpetuates Inequality and Colonialism

Caribbean islands as U.S. territories within an American empire has since the start sparked fierce debates.
by Anders Bo Rasmussen via Made By History on June 6, 2022
Peanuts, bagged and ready for transport, are stacked in pyramids at Kano, Northern Region, Nigeria, 1955.

After Slavery: How the End of Atlantic Slavery Paved a Path to Colonialism

Abolition in Africa brought longed-for freedoms, but also political turmoil, economic collapse and rising enslavement.
by Toby Green via Aeon on March 30, 2021

Colonialism Did Not Just Create Slavery: It Changed Geology

Researchers suggest effects of the Colonial Era can be detected in rocks or even air.
by Robin McKie via The Guardian on June 10, 2018
Hundreds of stampeders’ tents on the Tr’ochëk site and the west bank of the Klondike River (1898).

Historical Mining and Contemporary Conflict: Lessons from the Klondike

The local indigenous population was most affected by environmental change resulting from mining in the Klondike.
by Heather Green via NiCHE on May 2, 2018
Indian bicycle troops at the battle of the Somme in 1916.

How Colonial Violence Came Home: The Ugly Truth of the First World War

We remember WWI as an unexpected catastrophe. But for the millions living under imperialist rule, terror and degradation were nothing new.
by Pankaj Mishra via The Guardian on November 10, 2017

Black and Woke in Capitalist America: Revisiting Robert Allen’s "Black Awakening"... for New Times’ Sake

A look into neocolonialism in modern America.
by N. D. B. Connolly via Social Science Research Council on March 7, 2017

Columbus Day Is the Most Important Day of Every Year

Acknowledging the truth about colonialism is crucial if we want to comprehend the world around us today.
by Jon Schwarz via The Intercept on October 12, 2015
Vintage advertisment for Indian Land on sale, by the U.S. Department of the Interior

Universalizing Settler Liberty

America is best understood not as the first post-colonial republic, but as an expansionist nation built on slavery and native expropriation.
by Aziz Rana, Nikhil Pal Singh via Jacobin on August 4, 2014
A man pushes a bicycle as he walks amid rubble in the devastated area around Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, April 3, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)

Gaza and the Undoing of Zionism

A historian reviews new books by Peter Beinart, Avi Shlaim and Pankaj Mishra on the project that animates Israel’s violence.
by Yakov M. Rabkin via New Lines on June 20, 2025
Lindsey R. Peterson.

'Home Builders': Free Labor Households and Settler Colonialism in Western Civil War Commemorations

On the gendered dimensions of trans-Mississippi Civil War memory, the idea of the single-family household, and the politics of expansion and settlement.
by Robert D. Bland, Lindsey R. Peterson via Muster on April 23, 2025
A torn border fence is bent into the shape of the Americas.

What America Can Learn From the Americas

Greg Grandin’s sweeping history of the new world shows how immutably intertwined the United States is with Latin America.
by Patrick Iber via The New Republic on April 7, 2025
English looking at the word "croatoan" carved in a tree.

The Lingering Mystery of the 'Lost Colony' of Roanoke

From historians to horror writers to white nationalists, attempts to explain the settlement's fate reveal a great deal about our own attitudes.
by Colin Dickey via Atlas Obscura on April 2, 2025
Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, Battle of San Juan, Cuba, 1898.

How It Became Wrong for Nations to Conquer Others

It’s only a century since US diplomats first persuaded the world that it’s wrong for countries to annex their neighbours.
by Kerry Goettlich via Aeon on March 13, 2025
Illustration of Haiti flag with silhouette of a person.

The Island Nation Whose History Reflects America’s

Rich Benjamin’s new book reveals a shared spirit between the world’s first Black republic and the United States.
by Danielle Amir Jackson via The Atlantic on February 27, 2025
Group of white people carrying a sign that thanks Donald Trump

Make South Africa Great Again?

How the country’s post-apartheid politics may inform the world view of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.
by Isaac Chotiner, William Shoki via The New Yorker on February 19, 2025
Baseball caps that read "Canada Is Not For Sale."
partner

Trump Shares the Founders' Delusions on Canada

Attempts to add Canada to the U.S. have gone poorly since the 1770s. Trump's rhetoric threatens a repeat.
by Lawrence B. A. Hatter via Made By History on February 4, 2025
Screen shot of artillery in the video game Fallout 4.

Fallout 4 and the Erasure of the Native in (Post-Apocalyptic) New England

It is not attempting to tell a story about Native erasure. It is not trying to tell a story about Native Americans at all. And that tells the real story.
by Thomas Lecaque via Age of Revolutions on January 27, 2025
Destroyed buildings in Gaza.

Can Genocide Studies Survive a Genocide in Gaza?

A discipline born from the study of the Holocaust faces its contradictions as Israel stands accused of the “crime of crimes.”
by Mari Cohen via Jewish Currents on December 19, 2024
Protestors at Oxford University, with one holding a sign that reads "End Racism Now."

What Is Decolonisation?

There’s more talk of decolonisation than ever, while true independence for former colonies has faded from view. Why?
by Lydia Walker via Aeon on November 21, 2024
An artistic collage juxtiposing a transatlantic slave ship with a tenement in Harlem.

How the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Continues to Impact Modern Life

A new Smithsonian book reckons with the enduring legacies of slavery and capitalism.
by Jennifer L. Morgan via Smithsonian on November 7, 2024
Painting depicting the Salem Witch Trials.

Did the Witch Trials Ever Truly Come to an End?

Marion Gibson’s research rigorously traces the legal and human aspects of the trials through today.
by AX Mina via Hyperallergic on October 30, 2024
Talc and soapstone statue from North Carolina.

Who Were the Mysterious Moon-Eyed People of Appalachia?

Tales of strange, nocturnal people haunt the region—and so do theories about who they were, from a lost Welsh "tribe" to aliens.
by Hadley Meares via Atlas Obscura on October 22, 2024
View More
30 of
414

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History