In Europe mass killing is usually associated with the Holocaust. The areas where the brutality of the Second World War concentrated the most are identified with the regions that in today's terms include St. Petersburg and the western rim of the Russian Federation, most of Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus and Ukraine. This is what historian Timothy Snyder has called the 'blood lands.' The present research argues that Snyder's concept of "blood lands" extended through Greece to former Yugoslavia and Venezia Giulia, the area that is the focus of this thesis. With the invasion of Yugoslavia by Fascist Italy in April 1941 Venezia Giulia witnessed some of the most horrendous crimes committed by the Italian army against Slavs. After Fascism collapsed in September 1943, and especially in the period 1945-1947, the Communist forces led by Marshal Tito and Italian Communist partisans who ideologically shared Yugoslavia's plans in revenge unleashed a terror and exterminatory campaign against Italians. Both sets of persecution were facilitated by an open hostility between the two ethnic groups that dated back centuries. Focusing particularly on the Yugoslav Communist persecution of Italians in Venezia Giulia, this thesis establishes that it was true that the vicious Communist partisan atrocities targeted not just Italian prisoners of war and returning soldiers, but also unarmed civilians due to their ethnic background, as Italian survivors always claimed, even if many of them were innocent of any wrongdoing or even of political activism. Also the horrifying violence was not just a form of spontaneous vindictiveness that captured the imagination of the Italians in Venezia Giulia, but it was rather something meticulously planned and carried out well after the war was over because the conflict had to continue by other means, in the prisons, concentration camps and in the homes of civilians. This thesis reconstructs the killings and persecution of Venezia Giulia from the archives of Western observers and illustrates that this political mass murder was part of a more persistent strand in the first half of the twentieth century to destroy, subjugate and drive out groups judged dangerous. At the same time it shows how little Anglo-American observers were able or willing to do to intervene in the chaotic context of the end of the Second World War. The major contribution ofthis book is not only to bring victims in the full light of history, but also to explain that in Italy there is a fiction of war. The 8 May 1945 is celebrated as the end of the conflict in Europe. It was not. The killings went on for many years as the violence that was unleashed could not be reined in and this research tries to make sense of the brutality and loss.

This thesis merges the history of the seaside and the history of the freak show, to explore the display of freaks in the first half of the twentieth-century, including their meanings, representations and constructions for the British public. It builds upon the scholarly research conducted by Leslie Fiedler, Robert Bogdan, Rosemarie Garland Thomson, and Nadja Durbach that focuses on the exhibition of unusual bodies for entertainment in the nineteenth-century. Through concentrating on displays of freakery between 1900 and 1950, it assesses the continuation of freakery at British seaside resorts, spaces on the physical and metaphorical margins of British life. The thesis assesses the seaside space as a site for the continuation of freakery in the twentieth-century. It examines the different types of unusual bodies that were displayed as part of the coastal freak show including midgets, starvation performers, fat people, and 'half-men, half-women'. Through contextualising exhibitions of unusual bodies within their social and cultural context, it demonstrates how the British public understood themselves in relation to the unusual person on display, particularly in reference to health, wellness, 'normality', and 'abnormality'. Ultimately, the thesis argues that freak shows remained central to British culture in seaside locations until the mid-twentieth century, when other forms of amusement, such as films and television, became more popular in the leisure lives of the public, and became the primary way in which the public appeased their curiosity in those with unusual bodies.

This research offers a rounded account of the local ruling elite in mainland Southern Italy during the first dynasty of the Sicilian kingdom. It does so through a chronological, in-breadth exploration of the counts' activities, and an in-depth analysis of both the role the counts played during the development of the kingdom's nobility and government, and the function the county acquired in the establishment of social control on the mainland. This study is supported by an extensive and detailed survey of the vast relevant diplomatic material, both edited and unedited, combined with a comparison of the diverse available narrative sources, both local and external. The study has two central objectives. The first is to suggest the composition of the peninsular nobility and its continuities and discontinuities, by revealing how lordships were reorganised through the appointment and confirmation of counts, the total number of counties after this reorganisation, and the transactions and major events in which the counts were involved throughout the kingdom's Norman period. The second is to interpret how territorial leaderships operated between the upper echelon of the peninsular aristocracy and the other economic and political agents, such as lesser barons, royal officials, and ecclesiastical institutions. I argue that the creation of the Kingdom of Sicily did not hinder the development of the nobility's leadership in southern Italy, but, in fact, the Sicilian monarchy relied on the county as both a military cluster and an economic unit, and, eventually, on the counts' authority, in order to keep the realm united and exercise effective control over the mainland provinces - especially in Apulia and the Terra di Lavoro. Such a finding should encourage further revision of the traditional interpretation of the kingdom's social mechanisms for military mobilisation, administration of justice, and political stability. By emphasising the importance of the comital class and the changeability and endurance of the peninsular nobility, this study underlines the complexity of medieval, South Italian societies, and the multi-layered structures which allowed the Kingdom of Sicily to be a viable polity.

In September 1938 the BBC broadcast in French, German and Italian for the first time. The Second World War would break out the following year. The ambiguity of the British propaganda aimed at Italy during the Second World War is clearly reflected in the broadcasts of the BBC Italian Service as well as in the relationships between the British Foreign Office and the Italian broadcasters at the BBC. Radio Londra, as the BBC was known in Italy during the conflict, was concurrently the voice of an occupier and a liberator of Italy from the Nazi-Fascist yoke. Despite this, the station is mainly remembered as the authentic voice of anti-Fascism and Resistance. Drawing on unexplored archival material collected in Italy and the United Kingdom, this thesis aims to understand why the BBC programmes have become one of the myths of Italian cultural heritage of the Second World War. The work takes into account both British and Italian perspectives by answering three main research questions: to what extent the Italian exiles working at the BBC were allowed to operate independently from the British Foreign Office; what the programmes said during the most delicate phases of the Allied Italian campaign in order to engage with as many Italians as possible; and how the programmes were received by the Italian civilians. While answering these questions the research focuses on two key elements: the role played by transnational broadcasts in both creating a European identity and offering ordinary people a window onto a foreign world; and the contribution of the foreigners living in the United Kingdom during the conflict to the development of the BBC as a leading global broadcaster. The thesis argues that the corporation did play an ambiguous role but it was the reception of the programmes in Italy at the time that created the myth of the BBC as an authentic supporter of the Italian antiFascist cause. It also claims that one of the key reasons for the success of the Italian Service was its ability to engage with ordinary people and address their concerns during the difficult years of the war.

This thesis situates the transportation of convicts to Western Australia within the context of global flows of coerced labour migration in the period 1829-1868. It examines the role of European, Chinese and Indian indentured servants; Aboriginal Australian people; juvenile emigrants from Britain; and child and adult convicts who were amongst the extraordinary range of labourers who travelled to, and helped build, the Swan River Colony. Previous research has examined these forms of labour separately and within their local context. Instead, this thesis analyses the connections and entanglements between these different experiments in labour importation and extraction. It also shows how social categories – including age, gender, ethnicity, and ‘criminal status’ – affected the development of labour systems and the experiences of various kinds of labourers. By examining the relationships between these differing practices this thesis overturns presumptions about a clear shift from free to unfree labour in Western Australia in 1850, when convicts were first transported. Instead it reveals a much longer process of the introduction of new and increasingly controversial forms of unfree labour from 1829 until Swan River became a penal colony. In so doing it renders visible the work of those hidden from histories of Western Australia’s foundation.

John, 2nd Duke of Montagu (1690-1749) was an eighteenth-century aristocrat who held public office and owned extensive estates scattered across England, with the ancestral seat centred at Boughton House, Northamptonshire. Many of his activities have escaped the historical record, overshadowed by an inordinate focus on his love of hoaxing and practical jokes together with his arboricultural interests. This thesis presents new material and reappraises his most significant activities and interests with a particular focus on those which had a socio-economic impact on his estates. It offers an analysis of his preoccupations as an absentee landlord through his communications with his estate stewards regarding managing, consolidating and even expanding these vast estates, including his efforts to obtain a Crown grant for the islands of St Lucia and St Vincent in 1722. Offering the first in-depth analysis of this colonial venture, this study reveals who was involved and how the venture was managed, and considers whether the source of its funding was from gains made from the South Sea Bubble. It also presents new findings on the impact of the Bubble on the Duke’s estates, suggesting that he tackled the economic downturn by launching work creation schemes. In addition the Duke’s campaign to restore seigneurial rights on his estates and to enforce his regional profile is explored. This found expression in his quest to develop his ‘evidence room’ and in estate architecture, interior decoration and the revival of folkloric ceremonies. Finally the thesis reassesses surviving material to gain a greater understanding of the Duke’s overlooked military interests and how these impacted on his estates, ranging from the development of his armoury at Boughton, to raising regiments in the 45.

This study re-examines British press coverage of violent overseas episodes that took place in North America and India during the Seven Years' War, 1754-1764. Focussing on news commentary relating to alleged atrocities committed by non-European forces, this research explores the complex public dialogue that emerged in the immediate aftermath of those circumstances. Acts of perceived savagery instigated by native populations against Britons living or stationed overseas, became a prominent and lucrative source of material for the mid-eighteenth century news industry. Press attention afforded to events such as the British defeat at Monongahela in 1755, the Black Hole of Calcutta in 1756, or the massacre at Patna in 1763, satisfied a growing appetite for macabre tales of suffering inflicted upon Britons on the world stage. They also served, however, as discursive platforms for commentators to promote their own, often critical, views concerning issues associated with territorial expansion overseas. Whereas existing studies have mainly approached this area from a post-Seven Years' War perspective, by focussing on the dynamic and distinctive news polemic produced during the conflict itself, this research shows the period 1754-1764 to be more than just a precursor for a later culture of public engagement.

In October 1944, Pablo Picasso joined the Parti communiste français (PCF) alongside numerous friends and intellectuals. Despite the fact that Picasso remained a member until his death, the sincerity of his political commitment and the connections between his art and his politics are difficult to assess. What are the methodological issues associated with being a politically engaged artist? More specifically, how can we relate art and politics in a way that problematises the question of Picasso’s political commitment? This thesis will explore the various ways of evaluating Picasso’s engagement with the PCF. Focus will be placed on the foundations of Picasso’s involvement with the Party, the World Peace Movement, and various Communist-affiliated groups. His actions, statements, artworks, and donations must all be assessed within a broad historical framework in an effort to piece together a cohesive picture of Picasso’s twenty-nine years as a PCF member. However, sincerity and personal motivations cannot be fully determined; therefore, we must also consider how Picasso’s politics were constructed by others. The outside perceptions of Picasso’s commitment to Communism will demonstrate the importance of public opinion in the formation of Picasso’s political image. Archival findings in Paris, New York, and Texas have revealed the thousands of letters Picasso received from Communist parties, peace groups, comrades, friends, critics, and fans. The majority of this material only became available in 1992 and includes a substantial number of requests from political and charitable organisations, which demonstrate the extent of Picasso’s support for Communist causes and reveal how these groups understood Picasso’s values. Further documentation exposes the strategies employed by the Museum of Modern Art to separate art from politics; thus, making Picasso—and a range of modern artwork—palatable to an American audience throughout the Cold War. The diverse political uses and depoliticising strategies deployed by Picasso, his admirers, his dealers, and various institutions illustrates the discrepancy in his political significance depending on context, place, audience, and personal objectives. This thesis tells the story of a political brand and an artistic icon by challenging the way Picasso’s politics have been understood throughout history and by constructing associations between personal commitment, public perception, and consumption.

Between the shelling of Fort Sumter and the fall of Richmond, the British public followed closely the course of the Civil War in the United States. However, the themes of race and popular government typically associated with the war were not isolated to the American context. Over the course of the 1850s and 1860s, contemporary understandings of such themes were continually tested, challenged, and rebuilt in the light of international developments. In order to better understand these themes, this thesis interweaves two historical strands. On the one hand, it explores responses to global events during the period: not just the American Civil War, but wars with China, rebellions in India, New Zealand and Jamaica, nationalist movements in continental Europe, and the transnational independence campaign of the Irish Fenians. On the other, it examines the domestic debate about the extension of the franchise, from the failure of Conservative and Liberal bills in 1859-60, to the eventual passage of the Second Reform Act in 1867. Based on a case study of the large, influential and diverse county of Yorkshire, the thesis considers the extent to which a national intellectual culture existed in Britain at the time. In doing so, it examines the mechanisms by which new views of race and democracy were disseminated at the popular, provincial level.

This study uses eighteenth-century gentry correspondence from Yorkshire, County Durham, and Northumberland to investigate how letter writers discussed sickness and managed medical treatments in the home. Letter writers went beyond expressions of concern and reassurances of good health in correspondence by providing details about the experience of falling ill, diagnosing conditions, choosing treatments, and caring for their sick relatives. The extent of household medical work in the eighteenth century is an understudied topic compared to earlier centuries. This thesis redresses the lacuna in research by analyzing caregiving, medical knowledge, and medical expertise to reconsider the structure of household medicine and the extent to which the household functioned autonomously during illness. The chapters can be envisioned as a series of thematic concentric circles. Beginning with the bodies of letter writers and their families (Chapter Two), each chapter expands its focus to wider elements of household health and covers caregiving practices (Chapter Three) and medical knowledge (Chapter Four). Chapter Five justifies how the household could be a site of medical expertise which simultaneously paid for medical care by introducing a sociological model which allows for the coexistence of experts with differing but complimentary expertises. Interactions with paid practitioner are the subject of Chapter Six. This thesis also explores continuity and change in medical and gendered behaviour over the eighteenth-century. Arguments about domestic healing as a female activity are mediated by the clear interest and involvement of their male relatives, and the emphasis on coexistence and cooperation between genders. Mediating between the survival of medical practice, the change in medical theories, and the gradual decreasing interest in discussing caregiving practices through correspondence allows this thesis to position the eighteenth-century household between earlier histories of household medicine and the spread of hospital medicine in the nineteenth century.