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This paper discusses the establishment of the first Protestant church in midnineteenth-century Jerusalem, under Ottoman rule, relying mainly on British Foreign Office archives. It begins with an introduction to the geopolitical context for the spread of Protestantism in Greater Syria, with particular focus on Palestine, including Britain's initial diplomatic efforts to achieve this goal and the challenges it faced on different fronts. The discussion situates these challenges and the ways Britain overcame them within the context of Ottoman imperial regulations, which recurringly stalled or halted construction efforts. As a result, Britain's hopes of establishing a Protestant church in Jerusalem, and the Ottoman sultan's frequent obstruction of these efforts, reflect the layered British-Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century. The paper ends with an examination of the ways the British government managed to secure an Ottoman permit (firman) issued by the sultan, that allowed the completion of the church's construction in 1849. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this second paper in a series of four, we examine how the era of sustained economic growth also gave rise to recurring economic crises. Assessing the economic turbulence of the late 19th century and the early 20th century, and three prominent crises of the 20th and early 21st centuries: the period following the Second World War, the 1980–1981 Recession and the 2008 Financial Crisis, we survey how the economy and policy have reacted historically to shocks to growth, how crises have restructured industry and work, altering productivity and impacting future growth potential, and how the long-run growth trend persists despite periods of decline or stagnation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the way economic history is often presented, our aim is to provide a concise coverage of economic growth in the UK in four short essays that are written for a general audience of non-economists. In this first essay, we explore the drastic change Britain underwent in the mid-18th century, as agriculture and traditional production methods began to mechanise, increasing productivity to exceed the limits of the land and human strength. For the first time, people witnessed increases in the standard of living within a generation as national wealth soared. It ended centuries of subsistence living in which growth was negligible. As the 19th century dawned, Britain welcomed the steam era, an ignition of modernity, transforming travel, trade and production. We shed light on the wider repercussions of Britain's economic dominance, highlighting the consequences of rapid urbanisation and assessing the implications of the era of Imperial strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late nineteenth century, the great powers of Europe have been advancing towards Asia and Africa. And it benefited from the Industrial Revolution to extend its influence to those two continents, and Korea was one of the countries that was attacked by Western powers, not only that, but it became an arena for competition between the United States, Russia, China and Japan. Historians usually focus on the influence of the United States of America, Russia, China and Japan when they study the international relations of Korea and stay away from the attempts of British hegemony over Korea because it was weak compared to other Western countries such as Russia and the United States. However, it is very important to understand Great Britain's influence over Korea because London was the dominant power all over the world until the late twentieth century and for that it had competitions with most of the colonial powers. Throughout the nineteenth century, free trade policy became the most important principle of British diplomatic policy even after Great Britain immersed itself in colonial imperialism, using military force as a basis for promoting trade., Russia sought to reach the warm waters and advanced to the Black Sea, India and East Asia, which represented a threat to the economic and political interests of Great Britain in China and India. As a result, various tensions were aroused between Russia and Great Britain in the nineteenth century and one of the areas of this competition and tensions was Korea. Britain tried to maintain the balance of power in East Asia, so it maintained a friendly relationship with China before the First Sino- Japanese War, and also promoted friendly relations with Japan after the war. The ultimate goal of this policy was to prevent Russia's expansion in East Asia. Trade in it is relatively small as a tool for maintaining economic interests in China and its policy has proven very successful. Consequently, Britain maintained its economic priority in China for decades and peacefully dealt with military tensions such as the First Sino- Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is built on the premise that both the British Empire in the 19th century (during its rivalry with Russia, known as the Great Game) and the United States in the 20th century treated Afghanistan as a means to an end in their quest to fulfil their strategic interests, without much concern for the country's people, history and traditions, which ultimately contributed to their failure: Britain was forced to accept Afghanistan's independence in 1919 at the end of the third Anglo-Afghan war, while the US withdrew its troops in August 2021, putting an end to what proved to be an unwinnable war. The article's main body examines the British and American presence in Afghanistan through the lens of a historical comparison meant to highlight the similarities and differences in their approaches, while the conclusion contains a few lessons the US should learn from Afghanistan that might, ideally, inform its future interventionist strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]