How does a poet represent two distinctly different cultures in their work? How did James Berry interpret his experience and those of other Jamaican’s that migrated to England in the late 1940’s into his writing? James Berry was born in Jamaica in 1924, but moved to England during the wave of immigration from the West Indies led by the Empire Windrush. From a young age Berry had an interest in language, and showed an aptitude for spoken word and through writing soon realised he could explore the world from different perspectives. He became part of a new generation of post-colonial poets who drew inspiration from their country of birth in addition to British culture. This album focuses on a selection of poems from his collection titled Windrush songs.

This material forms part of The Open University course A230 Reading and studying literature.

This series of tracks concentrates on an ancient city, Thugga, and looks at the influence of the Roman Empire on the city and the existing culture. Material is taken from The Open University Course AA309 Culture, identity and power in the Roman empire.

 Details of further reading and websites to help you explore 'Selling Empire'.

This article traces the change from optimism over the Commonwealth and over Britain as a jet-age great power in the 1940s-50s, towards comedy and cynicism over empire by the 1960s. Starting with the Empire and Commonwealth Annuals of the early postwar years, it ends with Carry on Up the Khyber and the Flashman novels.

Read about how Empire Marketing Board filmmakers were given enormous scope to experiment and explore how this allowed them to progress from cheaply shot shorts on British topics to innovative films such as Out of Ceylon.

Explore the origins and role of one iconic Empire marketing institution – the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) was founded in May 1926 to encourage Empire trade, and given committees for research, marketing, and publicity.

In the late 1800s, the Benin Empire in Africa was a hotbed of artistic skill and the British wanted a piece of it - as many pieces as they could steal, in fact. But what were the beautiful Benin Bronzes and did the current Queen of England really fence stolen goods.

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Please note: This is course is due to be archived on Wednesday 21st December. You can study the course up until this date. For learners who have completed the course, the Statement of Participation will remain in your learner records in your OpenLearn profile.
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Historians on both sides of the Atlantic have argued that the empire was not an issue of popular interest in late nineteenth-century Britain and the United States. In this free course, Late nineteenth-century Britain and America: the people and the empire, we shall look more closely at the evidence available to assess the truth of this argument. Were the working people, as opposed to the political leaders, interested in the issue of expansion? Was such interest evident only among certain sections of the community? Was it predominantly an enthusiasm for empire, or not? We shall also try to identify some of the reasons underlying the nature of the response. And we shall be interested in how far politicians found it worth their while to 'play to the gallery' and to manipulate popular opinion. Through it all, we shall be facing some acute problems of evidence: is it possible to discover what 'ordinary' people thought about expansionism?

Reveal the stories of Hadrian's Wall and take a look at the legacy the Ancient Romans have left behind.