February 2020 – Page 2 – Manchester Historian

The French colony of Saint-Domingue (contemporary Haiti) was heralded as ‘the Pearl of the Antilles’, the slave-driven sugar economy making it the richest of the French colonies and a central component in France’s imperial vision.

Today, freedom of speech and action is seen as being central to western democracy. Yet, despite being one of the chief architects of the arguments for free speech and free will, and debating the importance of these issues for much of his career, John Milton remains an obscure historical figure.

In this episode, Wilf Kenning spoke to 2nd Year History and Arabic student Marco Dryburgh on the topic of Orientalism, and it’s relation to Colonial Britain. Marco discussed the key features of Edward Said’s seminal theory, as well as explaining its relevance and pervasive performance in Colonial Britain, and how we can even see traces of colonial Orientalism today.

The July 14th Revolution of 1958 led to the overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy and the creation of the Iraqi republic. One of the main leaders of the coup, Abd al-Karīm Qāsim, became the first prime minister of the republic. However, born out of violence and bloodshed, the Iraqi Republic was doomed from the start and, after only ten short years, the new republic, which had never been stable, crumbled.

On 1st September 1982, Deng Xiaoping addressed the 12th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Held approximately every five years, the National Congress allows the Party to change its leadership and alter the Party’s Constitution. The 12th Congress was the second since Chairman Mao’s death in 1976, and the first since Deng’s rise to power in 1978.