Ireland has often been described as England’s blueprint for colonialism. Since the 12th century, the kings of England have claimed dominion over Ireland and the Irish have been resisting British dominion ever since. If Ireland was England’s blueprint for colonialism, then Ireland has also served as a blueprint for anti-colonial resistance. The history of European […]
John Rylands is more than just two libraries. He was an entrepreneur and a philanthropist: the owner of the largest textiles manufacturing concern in the UK and was Manchester’s first multi-millionaire. By the age of 18, he had started his business, Rylands & Sons, alongside his father and his two older brothers in 1819. The […]
Although we may be buried under a mountain of essays, dreading the thought of exams and dying from a medley of diseases, the debacle of the end of term does signal one good thing; Christmas is coming! In honour of this, we have devoted this issue to winter festivities, from the religious, to the pagan, […]
Rageh Omaar has returned to our screens in recent weeks, offering what is certainly an eye-opening series. Omaar, known best for his time as a leading BBC correspondent during the Second Gulf War, presents a three part series looking at an often forgotten empire which stretched across three continents and commanded immense power and wealth. […]
The Watergate scandal was a major political catastrophe, which created a constitutional crisis in America. It not only removed the trust between the American public and the political system, it also had ramifications across the world. Hence, why major crises now carry the suffix ‘-gate’, such as in the recent political fiasco featuring Andrew Mitchell, […]
Oasis, Happy Mondays and the recently reformed Stone Roses; many outstanding and iconic names within British musical history have distinct links to Manchester. The city’s long standing associations with music were arguably imbedded the industrial revolution, sparking a platform for the working classes to identify themselves against. It is from this that the musical world […]
When we say ‘al-Qaeda’, most people think of 9/11, the 2004 Madrid bombings and the attacks of 7/7. Less people know of their effect in the Maghreb region. However, since 2002 there has been a significant amount of activity attributed to the Islamic militant group here, the most recent being their attack on the Amenas […]
For Ancient people, worship of their physical environment was not uncommon; we have seen this in sources from Ancient Mesopotamia, whose main gods, Anu and Enlil, represented the sky and earth respectively, to the power of the material world in the Dreamtime of Aboriginal Culture. However, what seems to be truly unique is the way […]
Earlier this month, on 1 October 2017, a lone gunman named Stephen Paddock opened fire on a group of oblivious concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas. The worst mass shooting in recent US history, killing 59 people and injuring 546 more, it should have shocked the world, but did it? […]
“Take me into the museum and show me myself, show me my people” June Jordan, African-American poet. Despite recent efforts to begin a “decolonisation” of British History, historians such as David Olusoga have illuminated ways in which “mainstream” history neglects the story of Black Britons. Looking at data taken from Advance HE’s Equality Challenge Unit for 2017-2018, the “ethnic homogeneity” of […]
The study of the persecution of witches is not a new idea – the almost morbid fascination with women’s persecution in the form of witch trials has permeated our imaginations for decades. Indeed, the image of the witch has long been a figure of literature and art: from folkloric tales, to modern day films. Yet […]
In light of this November being Native American History month, it is fitting to reflect upon the unique challenges that writing the history of Indigenous Peoples evokes. It is important to consider Donald Fixico’s observation that “obtaining a tribal viewpoint” is mandatory for writing a more balanced history of Indigenous Peoples. However, in a field […]
In 2025, Los Angeles, the ‘City of Angels’ in California fell victim to one of the worst wildfires on record. The four major fires: Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, and Auto, burned more than 12,000 homes, businesses, schools, and other structures. These devastations received unprecedented coverage, revealing the media’s reluctance to acknowledge climate change, and their bias […]
The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is the deadliest occurrence of the disease since its discovery in 1976 and has sent media coverage wild. This isn’t the first time the proliferation of a deadly disease has caught the world’s attention. Who can forget the 1918 flu pandemic – that circled the globe wreaking so […]