Image: Elizabeth Sunflower, Retro Photo Archive. The 1960s in the United States is popularly remembered as a period of intense social activism, bringing to mind huge, angry crowds in Washington DC, protesting anything from the Vietnam War to feminism.   However, on the West Coast, a lesser-known storm was brewing. Let down by the 1950s government relocation program, young Native Americans on college campuses across California began eyeing up opportunities to call out the thef

Image: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. The German Occupation of France between 1940 and 1944 is often hailed as the nation’s ‘dark years.’ Despite being a period characterised by political repression and censorship, paradoxically, French cinema did more than survive, producing many of the most well-known and accomplished films in wartime history. This cultural flourish emerged from conditions of moral compromise, which tends to raise rather uncomfortable

The Legacy of Tenochtitlan can be found in the spaces it has been preserved in, layering its existence in the architecture and landscapes of the city. Lacing memories in spaces that act as stepping stones for understanding Tenochtitlan then and Mexico City now. Spaces are a part of the historiography of the region; they shed light on both the pre-colonial Tenochtitlan and post-colonial Mexico City. Spaces in this history can be thought of as prophecies, not just for realising

Image source: Instagram/ Banksy On June 7 2020, the statue of Edward Colston, well-known Bristolian merchant and enslaver, was pulled off his plinth, rolled to the edge of Bristol docks, and pushed into the waters below by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists. TV and phone cameras relayed the moment to millions of viewers at home – few forget the image of Colston coming down. But fewer recall what happened next… Five years on, it's a fitting moment to follow Colston’s fate, an

The Roman Late Republic is a period of classical antiquity that has massively influenced modern-day academia and scholarly discourse. Whilst most people recall Julius Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Mark Antony, Cato the Younger’s life cannot be ignored. Taking influence from his great-grandfather, Cato the Elder, he became the moral standpoint by which everyone else compared themselves.  Overview   It is 46 BC, and Caesar has just won the Battle of Thapsus, securing victory in

According to Dr Mary Dobson, the Spanish Flu was long known as the “forgotten flu.” Only recent historical research has revealed its enormous impact, killing between 50 and 100 million people. This makes it one of the deadliest pandemics in recorded history, second only to the Black Death. There is still a lot of speculation about why or how this was able to happen, what caused it to be so fatal, and why it has been “forgotten” until now.   To begin, we should examine where t

“All human beings are born free and equal,” according to Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet, 77 years on from its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly, it is estimated that 50 million people globally are living in modern slavery, while global inequality has tripled since 1960.    A strong narrative for human rights emerged following the atrocities and devastation committed during the Second World War, driven by Eleanor Roosevelt. The Comm

The fight for access to land is one that has been happening in England almost as long as England has existed as a concept. While it has always been the case that large landowners controlled swathes of the country, this land was often available to access. Communal plots were common, allowing those lower down in society to graze animals or even grow crops to sell at market. Tracing the fight for access through the medieval period, then how protest became more official through t

Cabaret, urban nightlife, political propaganda, sexual liberation – these are all symbolic of Berlin during the Weimar Republic. Having been established during a period of political and economic instability after German defeat at the end of the First World War, the republic bore witness to a changing cultural landscape Berlin was at the centre point of this narrative. The city became emblematic of the cultural modernity and radical politics that came to shape the Weimar exper

The modern city of Kinshasa, now the largest in Africa and the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sits beside what is now known as Pool Malebo, the stretch of water that spans to the northern bank of the Congo River, upon which resides another great African city, Brazzaville. However, the former names of these places invite us to explore the traumatic colonial past of the former Leopoldville, located beside Stanley Pool in the Congo Free State.     The tale of L

On the evening of Wednesday 6 September 1090, five years before the First Crusade was called, the Shi’a missionary Hasan-i Sabbah slipped unnoticed into the seemingly impregnable mountain fortress of Alamut. After peacefully converting the inhabitants of the Persian stronghold, and removing its Sunni master, he began to build a movement that would become shrouded in myth. The group that would come to be known as the ‘Assassins’ would play a significant role in the politics of

In the period lasting from 1603 to 1868, Japan withheld itself from global interactions, opting instead for a Sakoku period of forced isolationism. Aside from a singular Dutch trading port on the island of Dejima, no foreign traders, missionaries or military personnel were allowed into or out of Japan. This however ended abruptly in 1853, where the modern military of the United States forced trading relations through their ‘gunboat diplomacy’ tactics. This directly led to the

The largest of the three megalithic monuments, the King’s Men stone circle, is late Neolithic, circa 2,500BCE. Image: William Raven    I had been reading the words of Edward Thomas’ ‘ In Pursuit of Spring’  and inspired by his journey, “on or with bicycle” down to the South-West from London, I, too, detoured on one of my trips down to visit my girlfriend, Lily, in Bristol. Thomas’s journey through “the Quantock Hills, to Nether Stowey, Kilve and West Bagborough” offers a “gli

‘Public history’ is a funny old term when you stop and think about it. People argue endlessly about what the historian’s role is supposed to be in this process – a guide, a guardian of knowledge, a storyteller, or something else entirely. But in all these debates, one question usually slips through the cracks:  What is the ‘public’ actually meant to do in public history?     And the moment you ask that; you uncover another assumption: why on earth are we separating the ‘publi

On June 21st 1948, the Empire Windrush docked in the United Kingdom, bringing with it 492 immigrants from the Caribbean, encouraged to migrate to provide manual labour to restore post-war Britain. Marked as “the primary scene of Black migration to Britain,” and even posed by academics as the “single event in launching multicultural Britain” there is a generalisation that Black Culture before 1948 was non-existent and that Windrush launched British society into multiculturalis

The Phantom Attack In the summer of 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin became the setting for one of the most consequential misunderstandings in modern American history. The destroyer USS Maddox was conducting intelligence patrols along the North Vietnamese coast when, on August 2nd, it exchanged fire with several Vietcong patrol boats. The incident was brief and inconclusive but quickly became framed as proof of North Vietnamese aggression.  Two days later, reports of a second attack

The Enlightenment is often viewed as a period of rationalised thinking, that sought to emphasise individualism and challenge the traditional authority. Those who promoted these ideals are often regarded as the ‘great Enlightenment thinkers’, and if I were to ask you to name me these people, you might suggest John Locke, father of liberalism; Voltaire, criticiser of religious institutions; or even Isaac Newton, the physicist who transformed our understanding of gravity and mot

When assessing the many indelible scars left upon the Indian subcontinent by British colonial rule, Kashmir often stands out as one of the most painful aspects of British failure. This wound remains visible in modern life as a result of the Line of Control, an enabling structure of militarised control and frequent border skirmishes, and part of the legacy of Cyril Radcliffe, a stark contrast to his subsequent public life as our inaugural Chancellor at Warwick until his untime

By the 1950s, the world’s most dominant colonial powers were crumbling. The impacts of the second world war were too much to overcome, and, with ascension of two new anti-imperialist superpowers, Britain, France and the Netherlands lost their grip on their colonies. Whether it was largely peaceful resistance, like that of India or Ghana, or violent anti-colonial insurgencies, like that of Kenya and Algeria, it was certainly clear that the people wanted out. There was, however

History is perhaps a project centred on memory and remembrance. Many people would suggest history is the study of the past, but how can it be when the past itself no longer exists? Doing history relies on texts from the past that allow us to study something that exists now but within a historical context. But what happens when the texts surrounding certain remembrances are minimalised, overshadowed or disregarded? This is why, as historians, we must learn to read in the silen