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 world over three generations. Cultures, characters, and plot converge in 1990s […]
The UK’s higher education institutions play host to both UK citizens and international students. According to www.universitiesuk.ac.uk there are 165 higher education institutions in the UK, many of which are world-class universities. The wealth of resources available across the UK, the funding opportunities offered and the quality of education and intensity of courses make the […]
As historians I think we can all remember our childhood bookshelves filled with Horrible Histories; from the Rotten Romans to the Shocking 60’s. We enjoyed them because they made history accessible beyond the classroom, free from homework and nagging teachers! Now, a new generation of historians can merely sit back and gain some of this […]
Hi Sarah. What brought you to the University of Manchester? I was lucky enough, in 2011, to be offered a position working on an ESRC [Economic and Social Research Council] project led by Julie-Marie Strange and Bertrand Taithe. What first interested you in history? There’s the standard answer, I suppose, that it was always my […]
HS2 phase 2 is the high-speed train line that will connect Manchester and Leeds to Birmingham and on to London. Promoted as an attempt to bring ‘the UK’s Victorian railway infrastructure dramatically into the 21st Century,’ the Government expects to spend billions in a plan set to transform North-South transport infrastructure, encourage business, boost employment […]
On April 18, 2021, football was rocked to its very core. Amidst the turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic, twelve of Europe’s leading football clubs suddenly announced their intention to form a new, breakaway continental competition in a move that would shock the world, giving birth to the deeply controversial and ill-fated European Super League. England’s […]
The history of the burgeoning counterculture in Britain often centres around London, with underground magazines and newspapers such as Oz, Frendz and the International Times being identified as the alternative press of the day. Although London was a countercultural epicentre, the existence of Grass Eye and Mole Express in Manchester illustrate the countercultural movement in […]
“Little men” compensate for their below average height by propelling themselves into quests for power, ambition and self-confidence. In essence, short leaders have defined key moments in history. In 2015, government scientists conducted research to show that ‘men who feel the least masculine are at risk of committing violent acts’. For many, this confirmed that the […]
Chinese presence in Singapore has been prevalent throughout history with archaeological evidence of Chinese contact with Singapore as far back as the Song dynasty and Chinese documentation mentioning travels to Singapore across various centuries. Between 1819 and 1942 widespread economic and political strife in China saw an exodus of Chinese to Singapore. In the present, […]
Kim Jong-Un’s recent more than month-long disappearing act has inspired many speculations. The most credible hypothesis is that the world’s youngest head of state’s love for cheese and alcohol has resulted in a pair of fractured ankles, supported by recent pictures of Kim with a cane. Such bizarreness may seem reminiscent of Team America: World […]
Over the past 50+ years, the rights of LGBT+ people have gone from relatively non-existent to an almost equal standing with heterosexual, cisgendered people. The UK is one of the foremost countries leading the change in how LGBT+ people are treated, and last year we were able to celebrate 50 years since the Sexual Offences […]
Militarism, especially in the US, has long been associated with masculinity and heteronormativity. Between 1993 and 2009, 13,194 gay men and women were discharged from the US Army under the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy. However, after widespread campaigns ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was repealed in 2010, allowing openly homosexual and bisexual men and women […]
The Olympics, both summer and winter, aim to bring the whole world together to focus on the positivity of sport and excellence, under its philosophy of good sportsmanship and fair play. However, in practice this rarely turns out so easily. The attention of the world and the Olympic pulpit are utilised for political gains and […]
According to Russian legend, Ivan the Terrible was so impressed when seeing the completion of the Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow, that he kindly ordered its architect PostnikYakovlev, to be blinded, so as to never build anything as beautiful again. Whether or not Yakovlev had any choice in this matter we are unsure, but there […]