Global History

The Spanish Flu was the worst disaster to have occurred in modern history. It began to erupt in 1918 and spread to become an epidemic affecting communities. As it was also a time of war, the epidemic became a pandemic because of the travelling soldiers who unknowingly became the carriers of the deadly virus.

This ambitious and fascinating history considers why, in the space of sixty years between 1850 and 1910, football grew from a marginal and unorganised activity to become the dominant winter entertainment for millions of people around the world. The book explores how the world’s football codes—soccer, rugby league, rugby union, American, Australian, Canadian and Gaelic—developed as part of the commercialised leisure industry in the nineteenth century.

Bytes and Bullets is an analytically rich account of how technology is upending global competition. Through engaging stories and original research, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior fellow Steven Feldstein shows how the West’s dominance is being undercut at every turn by commercialization, China's growing capabilities, and new regional powers building their own spheres of influence. He offers eye-opening insights from modern conflicts and proposes concrete strategies that democracies must adopt in order to maintain control.

An overview of how French Colonies have retained French traits. This article covers France's legacy in Cambodia, Canada, Laos, Morocco, and Vietnam.

Many popular modern board games were invented in the United States. But some of our favorite games came from other countries and have deep historic roots.

Leading historian Lynn Hunt rethinks why history matters in today’s global world and how it should be written. George Orwell wrote that "history is written by the winners." Even if that seems a bit too cut-and-dried, we can say that history is always written from a viewpoint but that viewpoints change, sometimes radically. The history of workers, women, and minorities challenged the once-unquestioned dominance of the tales of great leaders and military victories.

When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, most experts expected the WTO rules and procedures would liberalize China and make it "a responsible stakeholder in the liberal world order". But the experts made the wrong bet. China today is liberalizing neither economically nor politically but, if anything, becoming more authoritarian and mercantilist. In this book, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them.

This thoughtful examination of a century of travel writing about the American West overturns a variety of popular and academic stereotypes. Looking at both European and American travelers' accounts of the West, from de Tocqueville's Democracy in America to William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, David Wrobel offers a counternarrative to the nation's romantic entanglement with its Western past and suggests the importance of some long-overlooked authors, lively and perceptive witnesses to our history who deserve new attention.

We may think of "globalism" as a recent development but its origins date back to the fifteenth century and beyond, when seafarers pioneered routes across the oceans with the objectives of exploration, trade, and profit. These voyages only became possible after certain technical innovations—improvements in ship design, compasses, and mapping—enabled navigation across unprecedented distances.

A thrilling and vivid work of history, Class War weaves together literature and politics to chart the making and unmaking of social class through revolutionary combat. In a narrative that spans the globe and more than two centuries of history, Mark Steven traces the history of class war from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter.

From the acclaimed author of The Pencil and To Engineer Is Human, The Essential Engineer is an eye-opening exploration of the ways in which science and engineering must work together to address our world's most pressing issues, from dealing with climate change and the prevention of natural disasters to the development of efficient automobiles and the search for renewable energy sources.

In 2015, FIFA - the multibillion dollar governing body of the world's most-loved sport - was brought down by allegations of industrial-scale bribes, kickbacks, money laundering, racketeering, and tax evasion. Beginning with early morning raids in Zurich and the indictment of 27 executives by the US Department of Justice, the rottenness at the core of FIFA seemed to extend throughout all of soccer, from the decision to send the 2018 and 2022 World Cups to Russia and Qatar to lesser known cases of embezzlement from Trinidad to South Africa.

What if everything we thought we knew about history was wrong? From the global best-selling author of Empire, The Ascent of Money and Civilization, this is a whole new way of looking at the world. Most history is hierarchical: it's about popes, presidents, and prime ministers. But what if that's simply because they create the historical archives? What if we are missing equally powerful but less visible networks-leaving them to the conspiracy theorists, with their dreams of all-powerful Illuminati?

A fascinating look at archeological finds in Scotland, South Africa, and Malta that offer clues about ancient civilizations.

The Wake Up Call examines the October 7, 2023, terrorist attack when Hamas and Gaza terrorists breached Israel's borders, brutally murdering 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others. This attack marked the worst security breach in Israel’s history. “10.7” ignited a global surge of antisemitism, spreading across university campuses and city streets worldwide.

Beer is and has always been more than an intoxicating beverage. Its invention 13,000 years ago was one of the fundamental motivations for the domestication of grains around the world. In early states, the control over the technological knowledge and resources to produce beer contributed to social hierarchies. Beer even likely provided the capital to motivate laborers to construct the ancient pyramids and other large-scale public works. Beer is a social lubricant that brings people together.

Discover what life was really like during World War 2 for over 100,000 Japanese Americans. Whether you are an immigrant or not, anyone can imagine what it would be like to live in a country that is totally new to you and where you aren’t fully accepted. The life of an immigrant can be shockingly difficult. Japanese people who immigrated to the United States of America felt the brunt of this truth. In the wake of Pearl Harbor, Japanese families were uprooted from their stable lives and put into harsh internment camps around the USA. Their homes were lost, their businesses sold, and their ...

The Scots are one of the world's greatest nations of emigrants. For centuries, untold numbers of men, women, and children sought their fortunes in every part of the globe, from the British Empire to the United States, in cities and on prairie farms, as traders, bankers, missionaries, soldiers, politicians, and engineers.

Dive into the world of creative learning with "Unlocking Imagination's Pathway", a comprehensive guide to the revolutionary Destination Imagination Program. This book is a treasure trove of information, inspiration, and insight for individuals eager to explore new ways of learning. Chapter One will take you on a captivating journey, revealing the unique mission and vision of the program, its brief history, and far-reaching global impact. By delving into the seven core principles – from fun learning and creative critical thinking to teamwork and celebrating achievement, the book provides ...

In 1920, at the age of eight, Moisye Kaptzan spent months hiding in squalid pigsties and opium dens after Bolsheviks murdered his father and hunted his surviving family members. Three years later, when the Great Yokohama earthquake flattened that city, Moisye was buried under rubble. Trapped in Shanghai as a young man during WWII, he outwitted Japanese occupiers while assisting Jewish refugees running from Hitler. Undaunted by disasters, Moisye Kaptzan relied on his keen understanding of human nature and fluency in multiple languages to thrive throughout these tumultuous times.