Politics

Exploring the Gale Digital Scholar Lab as a Student of International Relations

| By Alyssa Anderson, Gale Ambassador at Florida International University | International Relations involves critical analysis for most of its topics, from global conflict to climate change. With the Gale Digital Scholar Lab, this research gets easier to navigate (and much less time-consuming)! The Gale Digital Scholar Lab is a cutting-edge, data-mining tool that accesses … Read more

Understanding the Cold War in East German Life through Primary Sources

| By Rey Yuan, Gale Ambassador at Rice University | What comes to your mind when you hear “The Cold War”? The nuclear missile crisis, the “Red Scare,” or perhaps the Iron Curtain speech? As a history major, I have long been intrigued by the incredible complexities of Cold War historiography. In particular, I have … Read more

Has the U.S. Capitol Been Attacked Before?

| By Gale Staff | The U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, prompted by President Donald Trump after his loss in the 2020 presidential election, and the subsequent trials of President Trump’s supporters and right-wing militia group leaders accused of committing criminal activities, including those of rioters who committed violent attacks on Capitol police during the … Read more

Election Scandal, Russian Spies, and FBI Surveillance

Five new collections in Archives Unbound containing declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation internal files digitized for the first time give researchers an unprecedented view of the state of government surveillance in times of great political and social upheaval in the United States. New Titles: FBI File: House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) FBI File: Alger … Read more

Brexit and Beyond

By Catherine DiMercurio

On Thursday, June 23, 2016, the people of Great Britain held a referendum on whether to leave the European Union. In the months leading up to the historic vote, the prospect of the British exit from the EU came to be known as “Brexit.” The world was shocked to learn the outcome of the vote: The British people voted to leave the EU. I was shocked as well. My fourteen-year-old son is fairly politically engaged and had a lot of questions, as did I. What our research revealed is that there is a tangled web of cause and effect. Here are a few of the issues at the heart of that web.

What lead the Brits to hold the referendum in the first place?

Those who argued for leaving pointed to the diminished influence Britain has had within the massive bureaucracy of the EU. There were also concerns about the steady increase in immigration to Great Britain. The arguments for staying focused heavily on the importance of economic relationships with the European community and beyond. These arguments are detailed in a number of articles and audio files presented in Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context.

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History in the Making

Posted on June 13, 2016

By Debra Kirby

Last week an important milestone was reached in U.S. history when Hillary Clinton became the first woman to become the presidential nominee of a major political party. Eight years earlier, Barack Obama celebrated a similar first when he became the first African-American to win the Democratic nomination for United States president.

Many other countries throughout the world have reached these milestones years ago, but did you know that the first country to elect a black female president was Liberia? Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became that country’s first female president in 2006. Learn more about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia, and the history around the people and events that helped pave the way for current groundbreakers. Following are just a few suggestions to get you started:

  • Did you know that Liberia was founded in 1822 as a colony for freed slaves from the United States, or that Liberians declared their nation to be a republic in 1847? Learn more about the fascinating history of Liberia’s founding in World History In Context.

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Happy Birthday Abe!

Posted on February 8, 2016

Abraham Lincoln’s birthday is February 12th! He was the 16th President of the United States, holding office during the Civil War, and proved to be one of the great figures in American history.

Did you know…

  • Lincoln lost five separate elections before being elected president.
  • Lincoln proclaimed all persons held as slaves in states of the rebellion “forever free.”
  • Abraham Lincoln is the only president in American history to hold a patent.

Let’s take a trip back in time to the years of his presidency. We’ve highlighted a few titles that can be found on Gale’s eBook platform, GVRL, to help you get started.

Abraham Lincoln, 1st Edition
April 2014
It may be little exaggeration to say that the figure of Abraham Lincoln embodies the American ideal more so than any other U.S. president. Although he came from humble beginnings and held several odd jobs before launching his career in politics, Lincoln’s determination and natural abilities brought him to the White House, where he led the struggle to preserve the union and emancipate the country’s slaves. Lincoln’s remarkable life—from his childhood to his role as Commander in Chief during the Civil War to his tragic death—is chronicled in this captivating volume.

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Feminism in Cuba: New Content Added

By Bethany Dotson

With the re-opening of U.S./Cuban diplomatic relations—and the recent failure of the fourth round of negotiations—Cuba is experiencing a new wave of interest from intellectuals and the general public alike.

With this interest in mind, Gale has added new supplemental content to the Archives Unbound collection Feminism in Cuba: the journal Minerva, Revista Quincenal Dedica a la Mujer de Color, or Minerva, Quarterly Journal Dedicated to the Woman of Color, published between 1888 and 1914.  Cited in recent academic publications as diverse as Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1899 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000), Between the Lines: Literary Transnationalism and African American Poetics (Oxford University Press, 2011), Cuba’s Racial Crucible: The Sexual Economy of Social Identities, 1750-2000 (Indiana University Press, 2015), and Black Political Activism and the Cuban Republic (University of North Carolina Press, 2011), Minerva is useful not only for its study of feminism in Cuba but also for Afro-Cuban nationalist ideology and identity, racial politics and culture in the Cuban Republic, and much more.

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