The British conquest of Bengal at Plassey, in June 1757, was one of the most significant developments in the eighteenth century. Plassey indeed laid the foundation of the British empire in India. Bengal was the springboard from which the British spread in different directions and ultimately conquered other parts of India. Hence it is imperative to examine closely the background of and the circumstances leading to the conquest. As I have already analysed some aspects of the question elsewhere, in this paper I shall confine myself to the more crucial ones, especially those raised in recent writings and which, strangely enough, tend to perpetuate the traditional explanation of the British conquest of Bengal.

Dans la perspective de l'histoire du continent africain, le colonialisme européen n'est guère qu'un épisode qui, comme le souligne l'historien nigérien Ajayi, durait dans la plupart des cas moins d'un siècle. Et pourtant, ajoute cette personnalité, la dominance politique européenne et ses prolongements, tels que le christianisme, l'enseignement occidental, les idées politiques et sociales, ont laissé une empreinte durable sur les institutions africaines. De même, la géopolitique a fixé des unités selon lesquelles l'Afrique a été subdivisée, et qui ont en majorité peu changé après la décolonisation. Mais Ajayi rappelle qu'il ne faut sous-estimer les initiatives des Africains, la réaction contre la violation des institutions africaines. La population a souvent su tirer exploiter les conditions nouvelles à son propre profit, soit en collaborant jusqu'à un certain point avec le système, soit en pratiquant une résistance active ou passive couronnée de succès.

At the close of the nineteenth century, that is on the eve of colonial rule in Igboland, Igbo metal industry was flourishing. Production had attained a high level in the range and the quality of output. The output included agricultural equipment, traps and guns as well as title insignia and ornaments, mosdy made of copper and brass. The demand for die smiths' products were widespread and seemingly insatiable. To serve the need of dieir widely dispersed customers and patrons, Igbo smiths from Abiriba, Agulu Amokwe, Agulu Umana, Awka, and Nkwere undertook regular tours of parts of soudi-eastern Nigeria and even beyond – up to die Niger-Benue confluence area; past die Edo country to Ondo Yorubaland; and to the Bamenda district of die Cameroons. The superiority of Igbo metalworking led, in some of these places, to the demise of the local industry.

The historiography dealing with the evolution of elementary education in the Spanish American colonial period is relatively abundant. However, a great part of the literature has a regional or national scope, and in general does not give an idea of tendencies or the scale of education, which makes a general evaluation difficult. This paper tries to present such an evaluation based on the available secondary sources, and covers the whole of Spanish America during the century prior to Independence. It attempts to describe concisely both the consolidation of the institutions which had been evolving since the Conquest, and the series of changes which, it concludes, anticipate the educational transformations of the nineteenth century.

Peasants is a blanket term for all those who, one way or another are involved in agrarian activities, be it as a labourer, a herdsman, a sharecropper, a tenant, an independent cultivator or in a combination of two or more of these activities. Besides this, one will have to account for part-time income from migratory labour or economic activities as home industries, petty trade, transport or mining. Many peasant societies are internally stratified into richer peasants, sometimes village élites, middle peasants and their poor brethren. In Western Europe and in Mexico most peasants belonged to the latter category. For them Darnton's conclusion, ‘to eat or not to eat, that was die question peasants confronted in their folklore as well as in their daily lives’ was certainly valid, and, out of necessity, these peasants were often looking for additional land or income. They were, for that matter, mobile.

No doubt few countries in the world are as centralized as Argentina. Most important activities take place in the Capital, Buenos Aires, a giant, sprawling megalopolis of about fifteen million inhabitants. Like government and business, historical research is carried out chiefly here. Indeed, there is no shortage of libraries and archives in Buenos Aires, but it takes quite some planning to make good use of these facilities.