The All-African People’s Conference was a series of meetings of anti-imperialism political parties, leaders of various ethnic groups, labor union representatives, and anyone else who believed Africa should be returned to the communities from which the European powers took it. This document contains excerpts from the resolution drafted by the Conference.

The ‘New Internationalist Magazine’ is a British nonprofit publishing cooperative. This text contains excerpts pertaining to the history of and issues related to Pan-Africanism. One prominent debate among historians is the issue over whether the decolonization that occurred during the Cold War was caused by structural issues in the imperial nations, or by “human agency” on the part of the colonized people. In other words, did decolonization occur because the imperial countries no longer had the money or military strength to maintain their empires, or because of the success of efforts on the part of colonized people to throw off their oppressors?

Trevor Getz is a Professor of History at San Francisco State University who specializes in Modern Africa and world history. This excerpt describes issues facing South Asian countries as they struggled to obtain independence.

The Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine - President Theodore Roosevelt’s Annual Message Before Congress December 6th 1904 (abridged)

The Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine - President Theodore Roosevelt’s Annual Message Before Congress December 6th 1904 (abridged)

The Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine - President Theodore Roosevelt’s Annual Message Before Congress December 6th 1904 (abridged)

Former President Theodore Roosevelt, October 12, 1915, before the Knights of Columbus, Carnegie Hall, New York City

The idea of Americanization emerged in the early 20th century in the period just before WWI. During this time, a huge influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe were arriving on America's shores. From the 1890s until the mid 1920s, over 22 million Europeans immigrated to the US from places like Italy, Greece, and Poland. Many Americans were suspicious of these new arrivals that practiced different religions, spoke strange languages, and had very different customs. Others feared that they were simply the criminals and undesirables of other countries. The Americanization process was supposed to remove the immigrant status from these people and replace it with a new American identity.

“Between the end of the Civil War and the early 20th century, the United States underwent one of the most rapid and profound economic revolutions any country has experienced. There were numerous causes for this explosive economic growth. The country enjoyed abundant natural resources, a growing supply of labor, an expanding market for manufactured goods, and the availability of capital for investment. By 1913, the United States produced one-third of the world’s industrial output—more than the total of Great Britain, France, and Germany combined.”

If one thing characterized early 20th century cities, it was their immigrant character. The “new immigration” from southern and eastern Europe had begun around 1890 but reached its peak during the Progressive era. Between 1901 and the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, some 13 million immigrants came to the United States, the majority from Italy, Russia, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.” One of the legacies of the immigrant experience is the formation of distinctive ethnic neighborhoods. Ethnic enclaves are specific parts of cities where ethnic minorities live. In these areas the people living there would create religious and cultural organizations where residents of the same ethnic groups could form communities. However, housing and infrastructure became a major issue. As urban populations increased, new types of housing were developed. Sometimes, two or three families occupied a single family home. These multifamily urban dwellings, called tenements, were overcrowded and unsanitary. Cities tried to keep up with the growth and expansion of the population, but usually failed, resulting in poor living conditions for immigrants.