Jack Crutcher reviews the Oscar-nominated, Golden Globe winning film, 12 Years A Slave. He looks why slavery has become a popular focal point of challenging cinema in the last couple of years. Of all the subject teachers in schools around the world, it seems reasonable to suggest that those teaching history are a superior breed. […]
Situated in the leafy Victoria Park campus, Hulme Hall is home to over 400 students and as such is the biggest hall in the area. Complete with it’s own bar, dining and sports facilities, and an active JCR; it is often considered to be the social hub of the Victoria Park campus. The hall boasts […]
1980s Britain was stamped by Thatcherite politics, unemployment, and a rising pop culture. Alongside this, amidst the climactic conclusion of the Cold War, fears of nuclear attack swept through the British public. In 1981, President Reagan named Greenham Common, Berkshire, as a base for US cruise missiles to be positioned in by 1983, galvanising fear […]
During the later years of the empire, the Ottomans were overtly portrayed by Europeans as callous and tyrannical autocrats who subjugated Christians in the Balkans. Such narratives portrayed the Ottomans as a brutish Islamic empire, whose only ambition was to persecute its Christian minority. Such a notion is not entirely accurate, as it fails to […]
Exhibition at the People’s History Museum, 30 June 2012 — 24 February 2013 Weather may be the most influential actor in human history. From fluctuating harvests to monumental changes in global climate, it will always be largely outside of our control. Storms are a sudden reminder of this. Only last week Hurricane Sandy threatened to […]
Laura Currer reviews her summer read, The Constant Princess. Popular images of the first transatlantic migrants depict fierce conquistadors in the South and pious pilgrims in the North, motivated by greed in the former case and obscure Puritanism in the latter. However, what really caused people to make such a radical journey in the centuries […]
The trope that Native Americans were the ‘first environmentalists’ is put forward predominantly by non-Native people and is constructed on the idea that the indigenous tribes of North America are in some way closer to nature. Today, referring to someone as an ‘environmentalist’ is not considered an insult. Broadly speaking, an environmentalist is a person […]
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 […]
When the Spanish colonized Ecuador in 1531 it began a rule of Catholicism, defining the figure of women as pure and virginal, and certainly in no condition to vote. Two incredibly important women: Matilde Hidalgo de Procel and Dolores Cacuango, born just 8 years apart, fought for the rights of women and indigenous people to […]
Emperor Nero is as infamous for his brutal measures and unstable mental health as his politics. But what about the man himself? The Manchester Historian sets out to uncover the man behind the madness. We all remember the children’s books, but what will a history undergraduate make of the television series? The Oscar winning picture […]
1980s Britain was stamped by Thatcherite politics, unemployment, and a rising pop culture. Alongside this, amidst the climactic conclusion of the Cold War, fears of nuclear attack swept through the British public. In 1981, President Reagan named Greenham Common, Berkshire, as a base for US cruise missiles to be positioned in by 1983, galvanising fear […]
Nowadays, Britain looks on as a plethora of religions, ethnicities and cultures celebrate their traditions in this now-diverse nation. But why is it that we don’t have our own? Friedrich Engels, by virtue of a statue in Deansgate, is ingrained in the heart of the city of Manchester. But how did a German man, who […]
In a momentous act of devotional citizenship and spirited patriotism, tens of thousands of Russian women volunteered to join the country’s ‘Battalions of Death’. They offered their allegiance, and even their lives, to protect ‘Mother Russia’ from the foreign aggressors of World War I. Russia’s female volunteers echoed history’s celebrated female warriors, the likes […]
Emperor Nero is as infamous for his brutal measures and unstable mental health as his politics. But what about the man himself? The Manchester Historian sets out to uncover the man behind the madness. We all remember the children’s books, but what will a history undergraduate make of the television series? The Oscar winning picture […]