Alex White
@alexjwhite.bsky.social
Historian-in-public with a focus on African anti-colonialism and the global media. Editorial fellow at @historyworkshop.org.uk, freelance everywhere else!
Pinned
John Okello and the revolution that made East Africa
In January 1964, a manual labourer from Uganda seized power in Zanzibar. The revolution, and the violence that followed in its wake, would reshape the region
www.geeska.com
New article out today! It's about John Okello, the Ugandan who led the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, and how a moment of deep political insecurity redrew the map of East Africa.
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
Reposted by Alex White
New article out today! It's about John Okello, the Ugandan who led the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, and how a moment of deep political insecurity redrew the map of East Africa.
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
John Okello and the revolution that made East Africa
In January 1964, a manual labourer from Uganda seized power in Zanzibar. The revolution, and the violence that followed in its wake, would reshape the region
www.geeska.com
November 9, 2025 at 3:57 PM
New article out today! It's about John Okello, the Ugandan who led the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, and how a moment of deep political insecurity redrew the map of East Africa.
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
Very happy to say that my John Okello article is now available in Arabic - and, crucially, far better Arabic than I'd be able to write myself. www.geeska.com/ar/znjbar-19...
زنجبار 1964: جون أوكيلو والثورة التي شكّلت شرق أفريقيا
احتشد حشدٌ من الرجال، صباح 12 كانون الثاني/يناير 1964 أمام المقرّ المركزي لشرطة زنجبار، وكانوا يحملون سواطير ومعاول وأدوات زراعية، فاقتحموا المجمّع واستولوا على
www.geeska.com
November 13, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Very happy to say that my John Okello article is now available in Arabic - and, crucially, far better Arabic than I'd be able to write myself. www.geeska.com/ar/znjbar-19...
Reposted by Alex White
What might a constructive conversation about Buddhism's place in Sri Lankan identity look like?
Bhadrajee Hewage on the politics of myth-making.
Bhadrajee Hewage on the politics of myth-making.
History, Myth and Identity in Sri Lanka
What might a constructive conversation about Buddhism's place in Sri Lankan identity look like? Bhadrajee Hewage on the politics of myth-making.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
November 13, 2025 at 7:02 AM
What might a constructive conversation about Buddhism's place in Sri Lankan identity look like?
Bhadrajee Hewage on the politics of myth-making.
Bhadrajee Hewage on the politics of myth-making.
Reposted by Alex White
This article was illustrated by Jas Martin, a student at Nottingham Trent University.
You can find more of her brilliant work here: jasminemartinillustration.weebly.com
You can find more of her brilliant work here: jasminemartinillustration.weebly.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:24 AM
This article was illustrated by Jas Martin, a student at Nottingham Trent University.
You can find more of her brilliant work here: jasminemartinillustration.weebly.com
You can find more of her brilliant work here: jasminemartinillustration.weebly.com
Reposted by Alex White
Does Artificial Intelligence have the potential to simplify, and ultimately impoverish, our study of the past?
Gordon McKelvie @gordonmckelvie.bsky.social considers the recent explosion in A.I. and what it might mean for historians facing the current Higher Education crisis.
Gordon McKelvie @gordonmckelvie.bsky.social considers the recent explosion in A.I. and what it might mean for historians facing the current Higher Education crisis.
Artificial Intelligence: A Warning for History
Does Artificial Intelligence have the potential to simplify, and ultimately impoverish, our study of the past? Gordon McKelvie considers the recent explosion in A.I. and what it might mean for the his...
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
November 11, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Does Artificial Intelligence have the potential to simplify, and ultimately impoverish, our study of the past?
Gordon McKelvie @gordonmckelvie.bsky.social considers the recent explosion in A.I. and what it might mean for historians facing the current Higher Education crisis.
Gordon McKelvie @gordonmckelvie.bsky.social considers the recent explosion in A.I. and what it might mean for historians facing the current Higher Education crisis.
New article out today! It's about John Okello, the Ugandan who led the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, and how a moment of deep political insecurity redrew the map of East Africa.
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
John Okello and the revolution that made East Africa
In January 1964, a manual labourer from Uganda seized power in Zanzibar. The revolution, and the violence that followed in its wake, would reshape the region
www.geeska.com
November 9, 2025 at 3:57 PM
New article out today! It's about John Okello, the Ugandan who led the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964, and how a moment of deep political insecurity redrew the map of East Africa.
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
www.geeska.com/en/john-okel...
Reposted by Alex White
OTD in 1919, the Scots Traveller author Betsy Whyte was born. Her memoir, The Yellow on the Broom, speaks to how punitive laws and 'reform schools' caused lasting harm to her community.
From the archives, Becky Taylor on how sedentarism affected Scots Traveller children.
From the archives, Becky Taylor on how sedentarism affected Scots Traveller children.
Hendry and The Scottish ‘Tinker Experiment’
Becky Taylor explores how ideas of sedentarism affected the lives of Gypsy/Traveller children and families in Scotland.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
November 7, 2025 at 8:00 AM
OTD in 1919, the Scots Traveller author Betsy Whyte was born. Her memoir, The Yellow on the Broom, speaks to how punitive laws and 'reform schools' caused lasting harm to her community.
From the archives, Becky Taylor on how sedentarism affected Scots Traveller children.
From the archives, Becky Taylor on how sedentarism affected Scots Traveller children.
Reposted by Alex White
In our latest History Workshop article, Sara Kazmi presents a curation of two protest poems in translation from the Punjabi anticolonial tradition.
Rebel Verses
Sara Kazmi curates two protest poems in translation from the Punjabi anticolonial tradition.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
November 6, 2025 at 7:00 AM
In our latest History Workshop article, Sara Kazmi presents a curation of two protest poems in translation from the Punjabi anticolonial tradition.
Reposted by Alex White
OTD in 1956, British and French forces invaded Egypt as Soviet tanks rolled through Hungary. The two crises helped to inspire international movements that rejected the binaries of the Cold War.
From the archives, Swapna Kona Nayudu on the lasting legacy of non-alignment:
From the archives, Swapna Kona Nayudu on the lasting legacy of non-alignment:
The Non-Aligned Manifesto
What is non-alignment? The history of this political project calls for the imagination of radical international futures.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
November 5, 2025 at 8:00 AM
OTD in 1956, British and French forces invaded Egypt as Soviet tanks rolled through Hungary. The two crises helped to inspire international movements that rejected the binaries of the Cold War.
From the archives, Swapna Kona Nayudu on the lasting legacy of non-alignment:
From the archives, Swapna Kona Nayudu on the lasting legacy of non-alignment:
Reposted by Alex White
What happens when nationalist history meets the horrors of empire? For @jacobinmag.bsky.social, I reviewed a new exhibition on British counterinsurgency at the Imperial War Museum jacobin.com/2025/11/brit...
Reckoning With Empire at Britain’s Imperial War Museum
An exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum offers a welcome corrective to the nostalgia for empire common among Britain’s elites.
jacobin.com
November 4, 2025 at 7:05 PM
What happens when nationalist history meets the horrors of empire? For @jacobinmag.bsky.social, I reviewed a new exhibition on British counterinsurgency at the Imperial War Museum jacobin.com/2025/11/brit...
Reposted by Alex White
New article out today! Published on the eve of Ghanaian independence, A Wreath for Udomo fictionalises Kwame Nkrumah's struggle against imperialism and imagines a future after British rule.
hwiccanreview.substack.com/p/accra-noir...
hwiccanreview.substack.com/p/accra-noir...
Accra Noir: ‘A Wreath for Udomo’ (Peter Abrahams, 1956)
A political thriller for a nation about to exist
hwiccanreview.substack.com
October 27, 2025 at 10:19 AM
New article out today! Published on the eve of Ghanaian independence, A Wreath for Udomo fictionalises Kwame Nkrumah's struggle against imperialism and imagines a future after British rule.
hwiccanreview.substack.com/p/accra-noir...
hwiccanreview.substack.com/p/accra-noir...
Reposted by Alex White
Full manuscript submitted! 🙏🏽
November 3, 2025 at 8:23 AM
Full manuscript submitted! 🙏🏽
Reposted by Alex White
I am thrilled to share my new open-access article on John Evelyn, his wife Mary, eldest daughter Mall and their complex, multifaceted relationship with clothing has been published in @historicaljnl.bsky.social
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
The Evelyn Family, the Mundus muliebris, and Conceptualizations of Fashionable Female Dress in Late Seventeenth-Century England | The Historical Journal | Cambridge Core
The Evelyn Family, the Mundus muliebris, and Conceptualizations of Fashionable Female Dress in Late Seventeenth-Century England
www.cambridge.org
November 3, 2025 at 9:39 AM
I am thrilled to share my new open-access article on John Evelyn, his wife Mary, eldest daughter Mall and their complex, multifaceted relationship with clothing has been published in @historicaljnl.bsky.social
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Reposted by Alex White
Some very kind words, from an excellent thread on activism and the work of the historian:
The field wouldn‘t be what it is today if marginalised people hadn’t fought for their history, and in fighting developed new methods, knowledge, perspectives. There is a reason one of our best journals is called @historyworkshop.org.uk (in German @werkstattgeschichte.openbiblio.social.ap.brid.gy)
November 3, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Some very kind words, from an excellent thread on activism and the work of the historian:
Reposted by Alex White
As Uganda's elections approach, government agencies have a responsibility to uphold press freedom. We condemn the censorship of Nation Media Group journalists covering parliamentary politics.
#Uganda #Journalismisnotacrime
#Uganda #Journalismisnotacrime
October 31, 2025 at 2:40 PM
As Uganda's elections approach, government agencies have a responsibility to uphold press freedom. We condemn the censorship of Nation Media Group journalists covering parliamentary politics.
#Uganda #Journalismisnotacrime
#Uganda #Journalismisnotacrime
Reposted by Alex White
How might we reassess friendship as a transformative, even revolutionary, political resource?
Laura Forster (@lauracforster.bsky.social) and Joel White (@joeljoel.bsky.social) join Marybeth Hamilton (@marybethhamilton13.bsky.social) to discuss the radical potential of friendship 🎙️🗃️
Laura Forster (@lauracforster.bsky.social) and Joel White (@joeljoel.bsky.social) join Marybeth Hamilton (@marybethhamilton13.bsky.social) to discuss the radical potential of friendship 🎙️🗃️
Friends in Common
How might we reassess friendship as a transformative, even revolutionary, political resource?
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
October 30, 2025 at 8:24 AM
How might we reassess friendship as a transformative, even revolutionary, political resource?
Laura Forster (@lauracforster.bsky.social) and Joel White (@joeljoel.bsky.social) join Marybeth Hamilton (@marybethhamilton13.bsky.social) to discuss the radical potential of friendship 🎙️🗃️
Laura Forster (@lauracforster.bsky.social) and Joel White (@joeljoel.bsky.social) join Marybeth Hamilton (@marybethhamilton13.bsky.social) to discuss the radical potential of friendship 🎙️🗃️
Reposted by Alex White
I read Wreath for Udomo earlier this year, along with Mine Boy, and will seek out more. Interested to find out from your account that Nkrumah did read the book. Abrahams at his best had an ability to present competing realities clearly, in something like the way Brecht's plays do.
October 28, 2025 at 7:25 AM
I read Wreath for Udomo earlier this year, along with Mine Boy, and will seek out more. Interested to find out from your account that Nkrumah did read the book. Abrahams at his best had an ability to present competing realities clearly, in something like the way Brecht's plays do.
New article out today! Published on the eve of Ghanaian independence, A Wreath for Udomo fictionalises Kwame Nkrumah's struggle against imperialism and imagines a future after British rule.
hwiccanreview.substack.com/p/accra-noir...
hwiccanreview.substack.com/p/accra-noir...
Accra Noir: ‘A Wreath for Udomo’ (Peter Abrahams, 1956)
A political thriller for a nation about to exist
hwiccanreview.substack.com
October 27, 2025 at 10:19 AM
New article out today! Published on the eve of Ghanaian independence, A Wreath for Udomo fictionalises Kwame Nkrumah's struggle against imperialism and imagines a future after British rule.
hwiccanreview.substack.com/p/accra-noir...
hwiccanreview.substack.com/p/accra-noir...
Reposted by Alex White
Hot off the press and #OpenAccess, check out 'Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Career as a Colonial Officer: Learning the ‘Colonial Way of War’?' by Sibylle Scheipers: doi.org/10.1080/0308...
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Career as a Colonial Officer: Learning the ‘Colonial Way of War’?
Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck is best known as commander of the Schutztruppe in German East Africa during the First World War. His previous career as a colonial officer with deployments in the Boxer Rebe...
doi.org
October 23, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Hot off the press and #OpenAccess, check out 'Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck’s Career as a Colonial Officer: Learning the ‘Colonial Way of War’?' by Sibylle Scheipers: doi.org/10.1080/0308...
Reposted by Alex White
"These proposals would mean deporting greater numbers and a greater proportion of the population than former Ugandan President Idi Amin's deportation of Ugandan Asians."
Stephen Bush on the extraordinary draft legislation which Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, Matt Vickers, Katie Lam and backbench colleagues have proposed in parliament
It is a proposal that would seek to deport around 5% of the resident population, including over a quarter of a million with ILR
It is a proposal that would seek to deport around 5% of the resident population, including over a quarter of a million with ILR
October 23, 2025 at 12:23 PM
"These proposals would mean deporting greater numbers and a greater proportion of the population than former Ugandan President Idi Amin's deportation of Ugandan Asians."
Reposted by Alex White
In 2011 the British Government was forced to release tens of thousands of secretly held colonial documents from its archives. But 88,000 files on Britain's last colony remain withheld from the public.
Matthew Hurst (@mrmhurst.bsky.social) on Hong Kong's colonial archive.
Matthew Hurst (@mrmhurst.bsky.social) on Hong Kong's colonial archive.
Memory Exiled
Matthew Hurst explores the 'politics of forgetting' through the missing files of the Hong Kong colonial archive.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
October 21, 2025 at 6:01 AM
In 2011 the British Government was forced to release tens of thousands of secretly held colonial documents from its archives. But 88,000 files on Britain's last colony remain withheld from the public.
Matthew Hurst (@mrmhurst.bsky.social) on Hong Kong's colonial archive.
Matthew Hurst (@mrmhurst.bsky.social) on Hong Kong's colonial archive.
Reposted by Alex White
📣 Call for participants 📣
Have you ever used any History Workshop Journal articles in your teaching practice?
We’d love to hear from you for the 100th issue of HWJ!
Please let us know by sending an email or feel free to DM.
Have you ever used any History Workshop Journal articles in your teaching practice?
We’d love to hear from you for the 100th issue of HWJ!
Please let us know by sending an email or feel free to DM.
October 17, 2025 at 4:21 PM
📣 Call for participants 📣
Have you ever used any History Workshop Journal articles in your teaching practice?
We’d love to hear from you for the 100th issue of HWJ!
Please let us know by sending an email or feel free to DM.
Have you ever used any History Workshop Journal articles in your teaching practice?
We’d love to hear from you for the 100th issue of HWJ!
Please let us know by sending an email or feel free to DM.
Reposted by Alex White
My latest blogpost looks at the almost simultaneous collapse of Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia's governments at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s
89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”
somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/89-91-nort...
89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”
somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/89-91-nort...
89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”
Between 1989 and 1991, every government from Chad to Somalia collapsed. The region still grapples with the legacy of this tumultous period.
somaliarchive77.substack.com
October 10, 2025 at 2:35 PM
My latest blogpost looks at the almost simultaneous collapse of Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia's governments at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s
89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”
somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/89-91-nort...
89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”
somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/89-91-nort...
Reposted by Alex White
OTD in 1945, delegates from across the world gathered in Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall in Manchester to take part in the Fifth Pan-African Congress.
Theo Williams on Black and anti-colonial politics and British radical memory.
Theo Williams on Black and anti-colonial politics and British radical memory.
The Fifth Pan-African Congress, 1945: A Landmark Moment in British Radical History
In October 1945, delegates from across the world gathered in Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall, half a mile south of St Peter’s Field, to take part in the Fifth Pan-African Congress.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
October 15, 2025 at 11:26 AM
OTD in 1945, delegates from across the world gathered in Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall in Manchester to take part in the Fifth Pan-African Congress.
Theo Williams on Black and anti-colonial politics and British radical memory.
Theo Williams on Black and anti-colonial politics and British radical memory.
Reposted by Alex White
'The British Library...has taken years to recover from a major cyberattack that disrupted its services and restricted access to its collections. The walkout is set to take from 27 October to 9 November, coinciding with the two-year anniversary of the cyberattack.'
October 15, 2025 at 6:43 AM
'The British Library...has taken years to recover from a major cyberattack that disrupted its services and restricted access to its collections. The walkout is set to take from 27 October to 9 November, coinciding with the two-year anniversary of the cyberattack.'