BBC World Histories Magazine Issue 18

The Second World War began 80 years ago this September. In many ways, its legacy is still with us. From the conflict’s economic and social repercussions to its lasting geopolitical legacy, the conflagration of 1939–45 reshaped the global order to an extent unparalleled before or since. Yet equally important are the ways in which the war – its apparent narratives and iconography – have been used to define and shift concepts of national identity and belonging around the world. This issue, our panel of experts investigates the factors behind our Second World War obsession, as well as the consequences of our failure to move on. That starts on page 40. Elsewhere, we examine other echoes of that past. In our Long Read feature, Dan Stone explores the recent debate about…

MORE FROM US historyextra.com The website of BBC World Histories and our sister magazines, BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed, is packed with thought-provoking world history content. The History Extra podcast Our twice-weekly podcast, featuring interviews with leading names including Serhii Plokhy and Emma Dabiri, receives almost two million listens a month. You can listen to episodes free via iTunes and other providers, or at historyextra.com/podcasts. Digital editions BBC World Histories is available for the Kindle, Kindle Fire, iPad/iPhone, Google Play and Zinio. You can find us in your app store. BBC History Magazine Britain’s bestselling history magazine is available around the world, and is published 13 times a year in print and a wide range of digital editions. Turn to page 22 for our latest subscription offer. Social…

Carrie Gibson The story of Hispanic settlement in North America provides key insights into contemporary issues of migration. As the historian and author explains on page 14, there is a “long, intertwined history between Spain, the United States and its southern neighbour republics, much of which has faded from public memory”. Karen R Jones “The history of ‘how the West was won’ (or lost) was much more variegated than the vision presented in traditional historical readings and countless Hollywood westerns,” the University of Kent historian explains on page 56, exploring a less well-known narrative of 19th-century pioneer women on the US frontier. Dorian Lynskey On page 66 the Guardian writer reveals the events that influenced George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). “[He] learned about many of the features of Stalinism that…

Viewpoints Expert opinions on historical issues that touch today’s world By the end of this year, in an unambiguous declaration of its status as a great power, China will formally put its first domestically made aircraft carrier into active service. But Beijing is also keen to acquire another offshore asset: Taiwan. In August 1950, General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, controversially declared Taiwan an “unsinkable aircraft carrier”, a few months after it had broken from the newly communist mainland and was on its way to becoming part of America’s efforts to contain ‘Red China’. A rising China wants the island back. The Taiwanese have been watching this summer’s protests in Hong Kong nervously, and their opposition to the prospect of Beijing rule has hardened: the…

Think of the modern relationship between France and Germany, and pictures of amity spring to mind. One memorable image is that of France’s foreign minister, Robert Schuman, shaking the hand of West Germany’s first post-war leader, Konrad Adenauer, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1951, agreeing co-operation on coal and steel production to forfend any further conflict between the nations. Events commemorating the world wars have subsequently provided the backdrop for efforts to forge a closer relationship. On 25 September 1984, for example, West German chancellor Helmut Kohl and French president François Mitterrand held hands in the Douaumont cemetery at Verdun to mark the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. And last November, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron made a show of solidarity…

On 5 August, the newly re-elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India announced that a presidential order had repealed Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which had given special status to the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The government also pushed though, with overwhelming majorities in both houses of parliament, a bill that stripped J&K of its status as a state, partitioning it into two union territories – Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh – to be ruled directly by the central government. Article 370 had been enshrined into the Indian constitution in 1949 as a means of defining J&K’s relationship with the Indian Union, and reflected the federal, plural and secular character of the Indian polity. India had claimed J&K precisely because the latter was a Muslim-majority…