A cotton growing scheme in the British ruled Aden Protectorate, the Abyan Scheme was built on transfers of knowledge from across Britain’s shrinking empire that were truly global in scope. From the immense cotton fields in Sudan to the agricultural methods taught at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad, there was much more to the cotton grown at Abyan than met the eye. Equally, the Abyan Scheme was also not immune to the existential threat of Arab nationalism in the 1950s, as its cotton crops soon became embroiled in Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s criticisms of British imperialism. As William Harrop argues in this blog post, Abyan stands as an important case study of how global ideas of development, expertise and anti-colonialism interacted and became reshaped on a local scale.

In this blog post Maria Reyez Baztán presents the findings of her PhD research, provisionally titled 'anti-colonial imagination and internationalism in Basque radical nationalism (1892-1939)'. Exploring the appropriation, adaptation and uses of anti-colonial ideas in early Basque radical nationalism through the analysis of Basque newsletters and newspapers, she shows how Basque radicals’ changing conceptions of colonialism correlate to global shifts occurring during this period. Her case study illuminates how ethnonationalist movements drew inspiration from ideas and events unfolding in different parts of the world, with anti-colonial movements providing a particularly constructive model for Western nationalists, who saw in these struggles a resemblance to their own history of oppression. These shared feelings acted as a source of connection which transcended national boundaries, embedding Basque nationalism within global intellectual history.