Modern

'They made many promises, but kept only one. They promised to take our land, and they took it.' – attributed to Red Cloud, leader of the Oglala Lakota. It is arguably common knowledge that English explorers colonised the 'New World', stealing the land from the Native Americans and marking it as their own. This is an accepted injustice for many people. It shouldn't have happened, but it did and there's nothing we can do about it now. Understandably, the Native communities, sti

In exploring resistance and revolution, it's important to reflect on how resistance has evolved alongside the systems that seek to extinguish it. American history shows that state efforts to prevent dissent rarely succeed completely; governments keep adjusting how they manage unrest while protest movements constantly change their tactics. From the country's founding to today's technological age, the United States shows an ongoing back-and-forth where the state seeks stability

Ironically, the study of revolution remains dominated by privileged academics that have historically overlooked many of its most important contributors. Although the turn of the 21st century would have us believe that the struggle for female agency is complete, women continue to be marginalised in narratives of resistance. Women are characterised as passive victims of political upheaval, despite their central role in shaping liberation, not only for themselves but for their w

When Captain James Cook first landed in New Zealand in 1769, he marked the beginning of centuries of colonialist exploitation of the indigenous Māori population. Fascinated by a people they believed uncivilised and less than human, generations of Māori tradition and practice were appropriated and capitalised upon in the search for a trophy to commemorate this landmark British ‘discovery’. One custom that prompted significant curiosity was a practice named toi moko, which d

At the time of writing (6 March), Iran is undergoing significant bombing raids by the United States and Israel, with President Trump calling on Iranians to “take over your government. It will be yours to take.” It is a remarkable irony that Washington has called for Iranians to seize their own destiny, an identical call made in 1979 which initiated the Islamic Revolution in Iran. To understand the trajectory which Iranian politics may take in the long term, it is crucial to u

Many contemporaries and historians have argued that the revolution was, in part, a direct response to the policies of Klemens von Metternich, whose system of governance epitomised conservative repression. Metternich’s extensive use of censorship and a sophisticated network of surveillance curtailed political expression and stifled reformist ideas across the Austrian state. His determination to preserve absolutism ensured that dissent was not only discouraged but actively supp

Whilst today it may be hard to imagine a Fascist Britain, to the people of 1976, the threat was a very real one. As Britain further retreated into decline, the National Front offered the easy solutions for the nations’ recovery, and as such it seemed that Britain was on the brink of embracing fascist politics. By 1976, the NF was at the height of its popularity: having appropriated the populist racism of Enoch Powell, the Ugandan Asians crisis of 1972 provided the party wi

Nationalism and a national spirit are so often the foundation for what society perceives as a 'Great Nation'. However, the problem doesn't come in asking what makes us great, but assuming who doesn’t fit into that mould. Nationalism seems to so frequently descend into narcissism, exclusion and a downwards spiral towards the eras of our past we claim to have left behind: Lest we forget. What becomes dangerous is the way nationalism can be weaponised without people seemingly ev

The use of pigs as relevant to the function of a fascist in matters of agriculture and in opposition to a fascist nation and narrative in the 20th century emerges as an interesting lens through which to observe totalitarian states. In matters of material importance, pigs can display the function of independent industry from imports that fascists would seek to achieve. They also allow us to analyse the use of propaganda to construct ideas that could either support or defeat a

The contested memory of colonisation plays a key role in the culture wars that are currently engulfing British politics. In response to the increasing historiographical and societal challenge to the glorification of the British Empire, prominent right-wing politicians have long claimed that the empire is portrayed unfairly. In 2002, Boris Johnson stated that we should celebrate our imperial history, and that “The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not

Fontana was a sculptor, painter and visionary artist. He was born in Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina in 1899 to Italian parents. At the age of six he moved to Italy, where he later studied at the Brera Academy in Milan. He began his artistic career as a sculptor, initially working alongside his father, before developing his own independent practice throughout the 1930s.  In his own words, he did not want to be a painter, he did not want to be a sculptor, he wanted to be a spa

In the streets of liberated Paris, August 1944, a ritual unfolded with brutal efficiency. Women accused of "horizontal collaboration" were dragged into public squares, their heads shaved while crowds jeered. Photographs captured these moments not as evidence of mob justice, but as performances of national purification. France, the narrative went, was cleansing itself of a German infection that had temporarily poisoned it. Charles de Gaulle's speech at the Hôtel de Ville cryst

The year was 400BCE, Hippocrates had just established the theory of the four humours, in which the perfect balancing of the body’s four components (yellow bile, black bile, phlegm and blood) was crucial towards maintaining an individual’s health. Flash forward to the eighteenth century, and this theory remained one of the dominating beliefs in the medical community. So, when Edward Jenner created the first vaccination in 1796 to combat smallpox, he was met with opposition for

On the 31st of January 1865, the 13th Amendment to the US constitution was passed by congress, just three months before the end of the US Civil War. The amendment stated that: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”. While the amendment immediately ended the legal practice of chattel slavery, it would take alm

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 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

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

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