The rise and fall of Germans in the British hospitality industry, c1880-1920

German migrants were to be found in significant numbers in the British hospitality industry during the period 1880 to 1920. They worked as waiters, chefs, and managers of restaurants and hotels. This article has three main sections. It begins with a brief outline of the rise of restaurants and hotels in late nineteenth-century Britain and the role of migrants in this process. It then analyses the Germans in the British hospitality industry in the decades leading up to the First World War. The article then focuses upon the rise of hostility towards Germans with the approach of the Great War, which led to dismissal, internment and repatriation during the conflict

Iconic dishes, culture and identity: the Christmas pudding and its hundred years’ journey in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and India

Asserting that recipes are textual evidences reflecting the society that produced them, this article explores the evolution of the recipes of the iconic Christmas pudding in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and India between the mid-nineteenth and the mid-twentieth centuries. Combining a micro-analysis of the recipes and the cookbook that provided them with contemporary testimonies, the article observes the dynamics revealed by the preparation and consumption of the pudding in these different societies. The findings demonstrate the relevance of national iconic dishes to the study of notions of home, migration and colonization, as well as the development of a new society and identity. They reveal how the preservation, transformation and even rejection of a traditional dish can be representative of the complex and sometimes conflicting relationships between colonists, migrants or new citizens and the places they live in

Multicultural Britain: a very brief history

http://www.britishpoliticssociety.no/British%20Politics%20Revie

Minorities at the Death of the Continental European Empires, 1918-23

This article examines the fate of minorities in the immediate aftermath of the Great War. It outlines the different types of outsiders, their plight during the conflict and developments at the conclusion of peace. While continental empires had kept most ethic outsiders relatively invisible until the nineteenth century rise of nationalism, they represent key players in helping us to understand the First World War. The post-War settlement meant the reconfiguration of minorities because of the collapse of continental empires but only resulted in short term solutions which the Second World War and the events which followed that conflict would solve in a much more thorough and even more brutal manner