As yet another state breaks international law, chemical weapons are again at the forefront of the debate about human rights. Tom Oliver looks at how has the rhetoric of human rights developed since its inception. A review of Dr Parthasarathi’s lecture on the European-Asian economic divergence. Popular images of the first transatlantic migrants depict fierce […]
We all know plenty about Sicily, Crete and Cuba, but what about those tiny little patches of land in Earth’s vast oceans? Here’s a few interesting facts about three islands you may only know very little about… NASA Thursday Island (Waiben) Waiben is the local Melanesian name for this island located just North of the […]
Upon visiting Phong Nah-Ke Bang – a national park located in the middle of the Annamite Mountains in Vietnam – I was stunned to observe that exploration was not advised without a map marking the unexploded bombs of the area. Despite the war in Vietnam culminating over 45 years ago, the subject of unexploded ordnance […]
Welcome to our first issue of the 2013. I know that the start of the year feels a long time ago now. I hope you feel that you have achieved a lot since then: exams sat, new courses started, results back. We are well into the hard slog part of the year, what with the […]
Known as the first permanent English colony in the Americas, Jamestown had a tumultuous history. From desertion to famine-fuelled cannibalism, the early years of the colony were not what the Virginia Company had predicted, let alone prepared for. Once home to the flourishing Indus Valley Civilisation and encompassing one of the most fertile regions on […]
“They had an immense capital dividend among an immense number of proprietors. It was naturally to be expected, therefore, that folly, negligence, and profusion should prevail in the whole management of their affairs.” Adam Smith on the South Sea Bubble The 1720 South Sea Bubble scandal serves as Britain’s first modern financial crash. At the […]
Francois Hollande recently became embroiled in scandal after an alleged affair with a French actress uncovered by the French press. Tom Oliver investigates the cases in history when sex and politics have become enmeshed. Sophie Brownlee explores Parisian pastry, its origin and its global migration.
In 2001, the infamous terrorist organization, Al-Qaeda, hijacked two passenger planes, using them as weapons to launch an attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. Not only did these attacks result in the deaths of almost 3,000 innocent people, but they also resulted in a traumatised United States, intent on […]
Carolyn Merchant’s book The Death of Nature, published in 1980, chronicles her groundbreaking theories surrounding the historiographies of the Scientific Revolution and how the changing rhetoric of science contributed to both the destruction of nature and the oppression of women. This related to a new strand of feminism called ecofeminism coined by French feminist Françoise […]
Railways are seemingly always present in the headlines. A consistently contested issue, the Guardian’s Seamus Milne is one of many who view rail as “a gigantic scam for siphoning off public money”, but what brought us to this point? To commuters, the private railways are not the concern of the government, nor do they have […]
The seventy-four day event which Buenos Aires classed as ‘a war’ and London classed as ‘a conflict’, began on 2nd April 1982. This was when, from the British perspective, Argentine forces invaded the Falklands, provoking British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s response to send a Task Force of over one-hundred ships to recapture the Islands over […]
While criminal plots do excite us, crimes of passion are the bread and butter of the criminal world. Katherine Almond investigates some of the most notorious crimes of passion in history. Francois Hollande recently became embroiled in scandal after an alleged affair with a French actress uncovered by the French press. Tom Oliver investigates the […]
Although most of the advances in underwater exploration have taken part in the last 400 to 500 years, it is important to note that the Vikings showed considerable interest in uncovering what lies beneath the sea. In the 700s they used sounding weights to obtain and collate samples of the sea bed as well as […]
Known as the first permanent English colony in the Americas, Jamestown had a tumultuous history. From desertion to famine-fuelled cannibalism, the early years of the colony were not what the Virginia Company had predicted, let alone prepared for. Popular images of the first transatlantic migrants depict fierce conquistadors in the South and pious pilgrims in […]