History undergraduates are often asked “so what will you do after your degree?” as if having a history degree dooms you to a life of unavoidable failure. No longer! Next time maybe you should answer “I don’t know. Maybe travel to every single country on earth!”, because that’s what Manchester Politics and Modern History graduate […]
Bram Stoker’s Dracula has become a staple of Gothic horror literature since its publication in 1897, and you would be hard pressed to find someone who has not heard of it. The novel and its eponymous character are arguably responsible for many of the modern depictions of vampires seen today, thanks to the staggering 217 […]
The referendum on Scottish independence slated for 2014 is so far generating little interest. The broadsheet media occasionally summons up the resolve to report findings of an august think-tank or the veiled threats of potential apocalypse befalling all of us from politicians on both sides. The level of coverage will no doubt increase dramatically the […]
We all know the beloved croissant; the fat curl of flaky pastry, often stuffed with almond paste, raisins or thick, oozing chocolate. But from where did this pastry come to take a place in every British coffee shop, supermarket and hotel breakfast? And is it because of the croissant that Paris is the centre of […]
In Russia, memories of Stalinist repressions and the Gulag are contentious topics. Despite over 20 million people perishing as a result of Stalin’s purges and many more being forced into labour camps in Siberia, the Kremlin, through propaganda and censorship, has consistently attempted to sanitise its dark history, which it portrays as a necessary measure […]
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 […]
Many European football fans view South America as the ultimate embodiment of football as much more than just a game, with incredible fan culture and intimate relationships between football and politics. In Passion of the People (1994), Tony Mason seeks to study the origins of the beautiful game in the continent and examine the accuracy […]
The 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square were arguably the greatest challenge to the Chinese Communist state since 1949. During April and May 1989, Beijing witnessed an extraordinary series of demonstrations known as ‘the Beijing Spring’. Protesters demanded freedom, democracy and the end of corruption. An estimated 3,000 civilians were wounded and over 200 killedalthough there […]
An overview of the history of gay rights in Britain (and in nations across the world) could easily be perceived as evidence for Francis Fukuyama’s theories of history having an end point – that homosexual men and women obtain full rights and acceptance in all societies and therefore their story ends. A closer look however […]
This article will feature in Issue 35: Fractured Nations (March 2020) Zadie Smith has said that the writer’s job is not ‘to tell us how somebody felt about something, it’s to tell us how the world works.’ Her 2000 novel White Teeth takes three cultures and three families and shows us how they experience the […]
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own Food is one among life’s endless delights. Throughout history, everything to do with food; its capture, cultivation, preparation and consumption; has molded human culture.Civilizations were inadvertently shaped by food as the early agrarian […]
Ancient Egypt was described by the ancient historian Herodotus as a land where men behaved in ways “opposite to other men in almost all matters” and one in which women “frequent the market and carry on trade, while the men remain at home and weave.” In antiquity, few women were granted close to what could […]
From Sir Lancelot du Lac of the Arthurian legend, to Jaime Lannister of Game of Thrones, history and popular culture alike are awash with knights. But is the truth of medieval chivalry hidden behind the romantic notions of knighthood we see on our screens and read in our books? If we look closer, perhaps we […]
The early origins of capitalism began in parts of Europe such as Italy and Germany coinciding with the fall of the feudal system. Capitalism is an economic system based on wage labour, in which the means of production is controlled by private or corporate interests for the purpose of profit, with prices determined largely by […]