David Veevers
@DavidVeevers1
Followers
17,601
Following
1,932
Media
3,853
Statuses
35,288
Historian of the British Empire | @BangorUni | 'belligerent academic' - The Daily Mail | THE GREAT DEFIANCE out 2023 with @PenguinUKBooks @EburyPublishing
Sussex, United Kingdom
Joined March 2020
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Rafah
• 1219849 Tweets
GW最終日
• 517721 Tweets
NUNEW 3RDMV IS OUT
• 447304 Tweets
井上尚弥
• 272395 Tweets
Inoue
• 160309 Tweets
シェリン
• 118934 Tweets
陸奥一蓮
• 96028 Tweets
ボクシング
• 69355 Tweets
大千秋楽
• 57117 Tweets
#キュウゴー
• 50598 Tweets
サプライズ
• 48447 Tweets
BINGLING SACRIFICES FOR LOVE
• 39812 Tweets
モンスター
• 38180 Tweets
Bruno Mars
• 34617 Tweets
ジェシー
• 27818 Tweets
GW終了
• 26655 Tweets
井上選手
• 25746 Tweets
逆転3ラン
• 24439 Tweets
筒香のホームラン
• 21369 Tweets
#GWを写真4枚で振り返る
• 17338 Tweets
20 YEARS OF MINJI
• 15570 Tweets
Białoruś
• 15207 Tweets
MIOTO NO VENUS PODCAST
• 15002 Tweets
筒香選手
• 13218 Tweets
Bernard Pivot
• 12899 Tweets
AESPA SUPERBEING TEASER 1
• 12732 Tweets
Last Seen Profiles
Pinned Tweet
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this - I am, after all, quite a private person - but I have a book out. And guess what? ITS PUBLICATION DAY! Thanks to everyone for buying, sharing, & supporting the book. Means the world to me. Let me know what you think!
95
222
1K
When Jewish survivors of the holocaust or those with parents and grandparents who died in the holocaust tell you that what’s happening in Gaza is genocide, you don’t argue with that. You listen.
35
25K
50K
Were they wrong on Vietnam? No. Were they wrong on South Africa? No. Were they wrong on Iraq? No. They won’t be wrong on Israel, either. Signed, A Historian.
276
9K
41K
I remember back in October when two academic colleagues called me antisemitic and unfollowed me for suggesting Israel had bombed a hospital.
215
9K
33K
It is very, very hard not to feel like you're completely losing your mind over Gaza. The slaughter, the children, the gaslighting, all of it. It's enough to send a person utterly mad.
620
9K
31K
Being forced through American-supported starvation to eat an American-dropped food parcel & then being sniped at with American supplied bullets and blown up with an American made bomb. Then an American journalist reports your death by saying Israel has a right to defend itself.
181
13K
30K
I’m confused, why would Israel need to ‘open up’ aid routes if it supposedly wasn’t blocking them in the first place?
66
6K
25K
“Find themselves without food”.
This week, I had the honor of hosting an Iftar dinner to break the fast.
This is a time for people to reconnect with one another and rededicate themselves to their faith. But unfortunately, this is also a moment of tremendous pain.
From Sudan to Gaza, Afghanistan to Xinjiang,…
2K
101
464
43
7K
24K
English sailors in Bengal after drinking Bhang, a cannabis-infused drink, in 1675: 'It soon took its operation upon most of us… One of them sat himself down upon the floor and wept bitterly all afternoon; the other, terrified with fear, did put his head into a great jar 1/2
149
2K
23K
2.5 million Muslims contributed to the Allied war effort in WW2 alone. But do go on with your racism.
What’s your thoughts on these Muslims praying in the street next to the Cenotaph?
2K
135
319
145
2K
17K
That every University in the West has not condemned this or at least made some kind of strong statement is outrageous, morally perverse, and the height of hypocrisy. Education for me but not for thee.
14
6K
16K
This should be on the cover of every history of the 21st century textbook.
A picture showing aid drops and Israeli airstrikes targeting civilian areas in northern Gaza at the same time.
207
5K
8K
128
6K
15K
Since October 7th, Israel has murdered 460 Palestinians in the West Bank. I have never seen a single article on the BBC about any one of them.
120
5K
14K
For my fellow colleagues who study colonialism & have gone completely silent the past 3 weeks: if you’ve published on historic colonial atrocities, you are under an obligation to say something about contemporary colonial atrocities. Otherwise go study medieval coins or something.
104
3K
11K
Palestinians: discover a mass grave of civilians murdered by Israel at a hospital
Western media: STUDENT PROTESTS MAKE PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE
38
4K
11K
Only Israel can blow up a foreign consulate and then play the victim. Incredible levels of gaslighting. Read any British newspaper and it’s as though without reason Iran is planning a preemptive strike and Israel’s allies are rallying to defend it. The math ain’t mathing, lads.
123
3K
11K
‘An empty paradise’
‘Population: 1 million native people’
Colonialism in a nutshell.
21
3K
7K
...and continued in that posture for four hours or more…four or five lay upon the carpets highly complimenting each other in high terms…One was quarrelsome and fought with one of the wooden pillars of the porch until he had little skin upon the knuckles of the fingers.'
17
207
7K
10,000 babies murdered - the US and UK do nothing
2 tankers attacked in the Red Sea - U.S. and UK mobilise for all out war against the Houthis
318
3K
6K
I hope these images become iconic in history textbooks: Germany suppressing protests against genocide. Read that again. This is what Germany (and the western world) have learned after 75 years. An astonishingly obvious wrong side of history to be in.
Police arrest and assault pro-Palestine students at the satirically named Free University of Berlin.
We live in 1984
667
2K
4K
15
2K
5K
Visiting a synagogue, but not a mosque; addressing concerns about rise in antisemitism, but not Islamophobia. In the middle of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, this is political intervention by the Royals.
Prince William to hear of suffering in Gaza and Israel
225
1K
5K
People asking me where this is from: papers of Thomas Bowrey, published by Sir Richard Carnac Temple in 1905 as 'A Geographical Account of Countries Round the Bay of Bengal, 1669 to 1679'. Bowrey was an English captain and interloper. The sailors high on cannabis were his crew.
9
117
5K
Why won’t kids answer any of your questions about their day and then when you’re trying to put them to bed later that night they’re suddenly like ‘Act 1, scene 1: lunch time, the sun rose high in the sky, Nicola had just shared her crisps…’
98
369
5K
What’s the earliest major historical event you can remember happening? (If you say 9/11, I’ll kill you for your youth)
I have a vague recollection of playing in the lounge with my toys and my parents watching the Berlin Wall coming down on TV.
15K
220
4K
‘Found dead’; ‘came to the end of their lives’; ‘died’; ‘a bullet found it’s way into the young lady’; ‘refugee camp exploded’…the linguistic gymnastics of western media desperately trying to avoid implicating Israel has been a most heinous crime.
27
3K
5K
I see ‘well the English and Irish were also slaves in the Caribbean’ discourse has reared its head. Often trotted out as rebuttal to the horrors of the transatlantic trade in enslaved people from Africa in order to promote a false white victimhood, let’s demolish this myth: 🧵1/
85
1K
4K
Sometimes when I’m going about my day I stop suddenly in my tracks, wondering how entire universities can be blown to bits and academics murdered and not a single Western University make a peep about it. Like how the fuck does that make sense…
87
1K
4K
The Right think historians bring left-wing prejudices to their study of empire. The truth is, most historians are radicalised *by* the study of empire, its violence, exploitation, injustice, & the centuries-long project to stifle critique of imperialism. To not be is sociopathic.
93
750
4K
The guy in my DMs asking me where he can get some Bhang from 🤣🤣🤣 My dude I’m a fucking historian
38
82
3K
Astonishing the speed with which Israel and its supporters went from labelling everyone an antisemite who accused them of bombing al-Ahili Arab Hospital, to just gleefully levelling every hospital in Gaza, killing babies, and not giving a flying fuck about it.
78
1K
3K
When I was in India last week, a friend was taken aback by how visceral the largely-Indian audience's reaction was to discussions of the British Empire. Their response was emotional, pained, outraged. And this is the reality of the legacy of empire for most of the world. 1/5
278
816
3K
An institution of learning; our fellow academics. Gone. Obliterated. Why.
Introducing Al-Azhar University in Gaza, where I had my first degree in English Literature.
890
18K
33K
35
854
3K
Historians: I hate the way historical dramas take such liberties with how people dressed in 1789! That sort of hat wasn’t worn until 1796!
Archaeologists: tv documentaries are trying to tell people that aliens built the pyramids.
20
374
3K
This recent corker: countries applied to get into the British Empire, like it was fucking UCAS
Historians of Twitter: in the rightwing culture war on empire, what, in your view, have been the stupidest/most depressing moments and why? Let's see if they tally with my list. For a thing.
40
18
111
104
310
2K
I come from a land, Wessex, within modern Britain, that used to be majority pagan. Today it has been Christianised. The memory of a pagan past has disappeared.
I come from a land, Anatolia, within modern Turkey's borders, that used to be majority Christian. Today it has been Islamized. The memory of a Christian past has disappeared.
-Uzay Bulut
#NatConBrussels2
@bulutuzay_
593
309
1K
33
285
2K
2 months today (25th May) the proudest work of my life will be published. I am beside myself with excitement! Let's GOOOOOOOOOO
120
260
2K
Weirdest war for people ‘dying’ but not being ‘killed’; buildings ‘exploding’ but not being ‘bombed’; babies ‘coming to the end of their life’ but not being ‘murdered’; those held in prison without charge being ‘teenagers’ and not ‘children’; ‘self defence’ but not ‘genocide’.
26
876
2K
I just heard Israel described as a ‘robust democracy’. Really? The PM is on trial for corruption, the judiciary has been gutted, a law just passed to shoot protestors, and a few months ago half the country took to the streets accusing the Government of overturning democracy.
27
590
2K
If you’re not ashamed to be British or American today - if you’re not sick to your stomach that our policymakers just guaranteed thousands of more children and civilians will be slaughtered in the coming weeks and months - you are quite simply inhumane.
17
560
2K
to understand legacies of colonialism, these white male Oxford dons who pontificate about blessings of colonialism need to get off their arses and speak to people in West Africa & South Asia & hear what the British Empire means to them. Then try saying 'what about the railways'.
95
176
2K
I’m sorry I have to tell all my new druggy followers that this is really my only drug fact from history.
10
15
2K
Did you know that the Mughal Empire had no roads or canals, no law, no government officials, and no military?
“The British empire that brought Infrastructure, legal system, civil service, military to many countries [and that’s a good thing]”. No Suella, that’s called colonisation. We didn’t want you there. You took our language, culture and land. We didn’t need or want “your help”.
1K
2K
7K
88
222
2K
Empire apologists excuse away colonialism by arguing that we can’t judge the past by modern values - never mind that ppl have always condemned murder, slavery, and war. In fact there were plenty of contemporaries that did condemn colonialism then. /1
26
319
2K
This is in an A Level History textbook. My god, where to start...my favourite is probably when it opines (based on no evidence) that other empires were “probably worse”.
131
380
1K
The way the genocide of the Palestinian people is making a lot of white Westerners feel like victims is absolutely gobsmacking.
🔺 UPDATE: Sir Keir Starmer has revealed he fears for his family’s safety as MPs are targeted with abuse and threats over the conflict in Israel and Gaza ⬇️
291
65
190
11
415
1K
'BuT wHaT aBoUt ThE aFriCaN sLaVeRs?!' - is the immediate response of those uneducated on the transatlantic trade in enslaved people from Africa (see, also: racists & imperial apologists). So let's do a bit of an examination on the relationship between Britain and Africans🧵 1/
33
450
1K
How are there still dipshits defending Israel? They’ve flattened cities, hospitals, schools, refugee camps, executed journalists & academics, killed babies, called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. What more do they need to see they’re on the wrong side of history?
195
452
1K
If any other state murdered 10,000 children, there would be an international coalition to intervene to deradicalise and demilitarise the perpetrator, and liberate the victimised people. But because this is the West, instead we abet the genocidal state and blame the victims.
34
548
1K
We KNOW he didn’t do that. Scott’s hostility to historians is really odd. The film employed historians/consulted scholarship for the film. So why not just say they sometimes made stuff up for dramatic effect, rather than engage in this bizarre ridiculing of historical discipline?
Ridley Scott on shooting a sequence where Napoleon’s cannons fire at the Pyramids.
“I don’t know if he did that, but it was a fast way of saying he took Egypt.”
(Source: )
1K
967
28K
26
142
1K
is utterly detached from the lived reality of much of the world whose experience was one of famine, genocide, exploitation, and disenfranchisement. It struck me that you absolutely could not sit infront of an audience in India and try that 'balance sheet' shit. If they wanted 4/5
9
113
1K
Coronation drinking game guaranteed to get you smashed in under 10 minutes: do a shot every time a tv pundit says ‘ancient tradition’ that was in fact invented by the Victorians.
29
140
1K
I just heard a Regius Professor of Theology (you know the one) say that because the English opposed the Spanish in the Atlantic, their colonisation of North America was actually anti-imperialist. Reader, I need medical attention.
68
83
1K
Fascinating but horrifying to watch a very public and widely respected historian absolutely torch his reputation to the ground in the cause of *checks notes* comparing opposition to genocide to actual Nazism.
55
179
1K
They wanted to know about reparations, apologies, attempts to defend empire in the UK. Audience members had stories of how their grandparents were shot at by British soldiers; how their families lost everything in Partition; how cherished post-Independence freedom is to them. 2/5
17
110
1K
Sitting in Britain & removed from the societies left traumatised by British colonialism, some are apt to try and rehabilitate the British Empire & even stress its benevolence. Calls for 'balance' in understanding the British Empire or resistance to exposing our colonial past 3/5
6
118
1K
I dare you to find a better looking chap in the early modern period than William the Silent. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
165
96
1K
Was v. excited to give a talk about my new book at a German University. But like others I’ve grown concerned with Germany’s silencing of criticisms of Israel and the suppression of support for Palestine there. Today I sadly decided to cancel my talk. Solidarity with Palestine ✊
62
279
939
Wow, just woke up. This has done the rounds. I seem to have united Bengali Twitter in a quest for Bhang. Anyway, preorder my new book, a 250 year history on how the world (including Bengalis) took on the British Empire, and seriously kicked arse:
12
38
918
Imagine if these babies were white. We’d move fucking heaven and earth to save them. But they’re the wrong colour. And so they’ll probably die. This is the legacy of centuries of the ‘West’.
39 babies on incubators in Al Shifa. This is the last room with electricity. Two have already died. 37 babies.
175
10K
17K
21
480
902
‘WhAt AbOuT tHe ArAb SlAvE tRaDeRs?!’ is another trope often deployed by those wishing to deflect from Europe’s role in the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, hoping to prioritise a narrative of European victimhood.
Let’s put this one under the microscope, shall we? 🧵
56
189
883
Umm something just arrived at my door! The product of my life for almost a decade, happy to present my book The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, out now in hardback and ebook with
@cambUP_History
order your library a copy and help an early career academic out!
45
155
880
This has caught on nicely, some great memories. I’ll throw abouther one in the ring: I very clearly remember my geography teacher saying “ignore where it says USSR. It should be Russia now” when using the atlas!
94
15
823
Ireland was the first overseas English colony, and became the laboratory for the formation of colonial strategies of violence and atrocity against colonised people that would be deployed elsewhere in its nascent empire in the C16th & C17th 2/
3
90
852
The no-go zone for Jewish people is, it appears, full of Jewish people.
We joined the main march: From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free
#JewishBloc
#GazaGenocide
#ViolentMob
#NoGoZoneForJews
37
405
952
15
274
844
Really enjoying Shogun - it's well acted, great production value, and the best thing? It's also historically accurate, too. Particularly the role of the Portuguese and especially the importance of the Black Ship. I wrote about this in my book The Great Defiance. Here's a 🧵
13
130
825
Absolutely stunning Safavid portrait of an African solider - c.1690. Rare to find black subjects in Persian art this early.
12
153
804
Oh crap! Forgot to add - as usual - they if you found this thread informative, don’t be a tight git: preorder my forthcoming book! Also makes a lovely anniversary gift. Very romantic.
26
79
804
@MadeYorkshire
1m Muslims from India alone fought for the British Empire. But keep going skippy.
11
11
795
conditions for indentured people from Europe. By falsely claiming Irish ppl - the first victims of English colonialism - were enslaved, is unnecessary, as evidence of their tragic subjugation by the English is extant and terrible enough. It also feeds into racist narratives 21/
5
92
792
which attempt to promote a faux white victimhood as a way to excuse or deny the unprecedented dehumanisation, trafficking, and suffering of ppl from Africa who were rendered into property, with no hope of freedom, and often worked to death in the name of English expansion. 22/22
9
77
793
The life of a West African male in 1684 was valued by English slave traders as 10 yards of Bengali silk. As a historian of empire I'm more than familiar with the trade in enslaved Africans. But my god when you get into the archival sources it still has the ability to break you.
22
128
775
Putting together new module for September: Tudor Conquest of Ireland. It will put Ireland at centre of narrative of Tudor expansion, studying Irish culture, political resilience, & atrocities committed by English colonists. Irish history remains chronically neglected in UK!
47
74
761
*decades of thriving scholarship dedicated to studying slavery in the Muslim world*
Dipshit from the Spectator:
24
60
696
In the early stages of genocide Israel really tried with the propaganda, like running through smouldering ruins waving pride flags talking about gay rights; but because we all saw through it now they’re just like ‘we’re here to kill them all and take their land that’s it.’
12
320
714
“You can’t judge slavers by today’s standards - everyone accepted it back then, values were different”. Erm whose values? Because I can think of a dozen million people who certainly did not accept it. Oh sorry you’re thinking entirely from a white colonial perspective. My bad.
33
95
704
Before England formed trading companies, established monopolies in other countries, and violently enforced them in the name of commercial gain, it was itself a victim of an aggressive and ambitious trading company whose power it struggled to contain: The Hanseatic League.
16
106
693
It’s important to to she’s light on various forms of exploitative labour employed by violent and voracious English empire, but it’s just as important to distinguish between the perpetual - and unprecedented - dehumanisation of ppl from West Africa, & the temporarily harsh 20/
1
86
639
Your vibes are bollocks. I’ve taught at Universities that ran these modules and they were the ones with fewest students. At my last Uni the flagship module that was oversubscribed? Global history with focus on culture and religion. Students don’t want old fashioned history.
I feel like history departments would attract more students to their classes if they taught more “old fashioned” military and political history like you hear on podcasts or see among popular press books.
Maybe nobody cares but…
337
101
2K
35
40
639
No one - literally no one - is standing up for *Hamas*. This is disingenuous and bad faith at best, Simon. The people are standing up for the innocent men, women and children being bombed to pieces in their THOUSANDS. Good god man what a terrible, terrible take to share.
38
105
630
& once completed, they became free and independent of their employers. They also had legal rights, and were defined in several laws, most famously the Barbados Legal Code of 1661, as servants, not slaves. In stark contrast, people from Africa trafficked to the Caribbean 16/
3
68
627
We must strengthen our democracy by removing the independent judiciary is the stupidest take I’ve ever heard.
45
118
631
In order to break Irish resistance against expansion of English political authority and territorial rule, brutal wars against Kildares in Leinster, Desmonds in Munster, and O’Neills in Ulster decimated those regions. As Irish forces were often hard to defeat, especially 3/
2
45
626
You can interpret mass global peaceful protests calling for an end to genocide as supposedly antisemitic if you want. But if you don’t address the tsunami of Jewish voices participating in and even leading these demonstrations, your whole position is totally bollocks.
17
151
612
…kinsfolk and friends’ would cower Irish troops into surrender. Famine, one English official declared, ‘was the only site away to reduce or root out the rebels.’ English engineered-famine became the key weapon of choice, and at turn of C17th killed thousands 6/
1
51
603
My students as essay deadlines loom: what referencing system should we use? Chicago? Harvard? MLA? Oxford?
Me, an author of several books: I dunno, I just put the authors name, title, publication place and date, and page number.
Students: what system is that?
Me: a simple one?
42
22
607
Conditions were so bad, many tries to stowaway on ships heading back across the Atlantic to Europe, and at least one major armed uprising of indentured servants took place on Barbados. But indentured servants were not slaves. Their contracts typically lasted 2 to 5 years 15/
2
69
596
***COVER REVEAL*** Just in time for the Christmas break, I am so excited to announce that my book The Great Defiance - a history of the people who resisted the British Empire - now has a brilliant cover. LOOK AT THAT COVER! Pre-order: via
@PenguinUKBooks
38
95
596
the modern army of Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, who delivered biggest defeat English had ever suffered at Battle of the Yellow Ford in 1598 in which approx 2000 English were killed. To undermine and punish successful Irish resistance, English attacked civilians 4/
3
46
591
Update: I got the job 😉 When my Leverhulme Fellowship finishes in September, I’ll be taking up an Early Modern post in the Warwick History Department!
Interviewed on Friday. Thought it went well. However I always assumed if you had the job, you usually get the call that same day. Is it possible I might still be in the running?🤷
28
0
23
108
1
594
“According to Israeli sources”— let me stop you right there: fuck off
4
137
590
The slaughter of Irish villagers ‘by the sword was the way to kill the men of war by famine’, boasted Sir Humphrey Gilbert. He lined the path of his tent with the decapitated heads of villagers. He believed the sight of ‘the heads of their dead fathers, brothers, children… 5/
2
54
581
were chattel slaves, owned as property by their white masters, without legal rights & no hope of freedom. With spread of sugar cultivation from 1640s, & need for almost endless supply of labour, enslaved African ppl soon eclipsed number of indentured servants by a big margin. 17/
1
60
579
The most impressive achievement of the coronation has to be the absolute whitewashing of this marriage. The rehabilitation of Camilla is something to behold. Some commentator just said their whole relationship was a true love story HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MINDS
25
54
579
It’s the most beautiful thing ever. It’s ok, my wife and kids aren’t on Twitter.
20
33
552