I. There was no glory to be won after war was done. Qin, Han, Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu, Qi. Six states, divided, following the end of the Zhou. Qin Shi Huang, leader of the Qin, had prevailed to unite Zhongguo under one ruler - the nation’s first emperor. When history is written, it also tends to overlook the events in the aftermath. After eleven long years, the nation was rebuilt. The streets that once ran red with the people’s blood were beginning to clear, with new bonds being

When we hear the word alchemy, we may picture an eccentric old man, locked away obsessing over the transmutation of lead to gold, or with the discovery of the secret to eternal life. In truth however, alchemy is a much more complex and ancient discipline than one may assume. Whilst it is not possible to cover the whole history of alchemy in adequate depth within a small article such as this, I will be covering key features and changes, whilst highlighting the pervasive Hermet

A short piece of historical fiction set in Reformation-era Suffolk, following Thomas, an illiterate wool merchant, as he confronts the whitewashing of his parish church’s medieval wall paintings under royal commission. --- Thomas could not read. He had never thought of this as a lack until the year the paintings came down. He was forty-three, a Suffolk wool merchant, and he had managed a household, negotiated with suppliers, raised five children, and buried two of them, all w

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

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning separateness or apartness. In practical terms, these were laws and statutes which enforced white South African superiority. The roots of apartheid can be traced back to colonial South Africa when the British arrived into the area and despite tensions with the Boer tribes were motivated to stay in the area due to finding gold and diamonds there. This discovery also led to increased numbers of Europeans coming into the country. The tension

Across this past year, the people who make Rewind what it is – writers, editors, designers, researchers, and more – have shared what it has meant to them. “I have been with Rewind (pretty much) since the very beginning, and it has been so incredible watching it grow into print editions, projects, and even a national award! Working on the design team has meant I have been able to read and interact with so many outstanding articles. It is undeniable how much impact Rewind has h

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

On February 5, 2003, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council and declared Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He held up a vial of white powder, displayed satellite photographs and played intercepted Iraqi phone calls. The Washington Post called the presentation “irrefutable”. Nine days after, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin rose at the same podium with no props, no satellite imagery and argued the insp

There is a bronze statue in a Suffolk town that most people will never visit. It stands among the ruins of what was once the largest Romanesque church ever built – a building whose footprint would have dwarfed Salisbury Cathedral, its west front reckoned amongst the most extraordinary architectural facades in all of Europe. The man in bronze is young, crowned, and his eyes are closed. He is St Edmund: ninth-century king of East Anglia, martyr, and – long before St George acqu

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

Content Warning: This article contains detailed descriptions of torture, bodily mutilation, and execution. The early modern period has become synonymous with the witch-hunts that took place over the course of four centuries throughout Europe and Colonial America. Those who found themselves standing accused of witchcraft, predominantly women, were subjected to a rigorous process that often resulted in execution. As suspicions arose within communities, neighbours began to turn

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

The year is 1518. It’s the peak of a blistering summer. Strasbourg, one of the largest cities of the Holy Roman Empire, is gripped by a dancing mania. Blistered feet stain the streets with blood, sweat pours down jerking bodies, cries for help fill the air, the smell of heat stifles the city. Some dance in the narrow streets, some in the public square, some at home. Strasbourg was afflicted by choreomania : people were dancing themselves to death. One month earlier, a woman

Paris, 1832 . In the early hours of the 29th of May, a young Frenchman wrote two letters. The first, a note to his friends covered in scribbles, crossed out names of love and phrases of delirium: “ je n’ai pas le temps ” (“I don’t have the time”). The other, a paper containing fascinating mathematical discoveries that would ignite a generation of thought and, as mathematician Arthur Cayley would later put it, "marked an epoch in the progress of the theory of algebraic equatio

Today, we usually attribute misfortune and tragedy to chance or coincidence, not tending to read into such events for any underlying cause or significance, however the same cannot be said for those living in early modern Europe, who often turned to the supernatural for an explanation, which cultivated a paranoid and God-fearing society. Looking at fears surrounding the patriarchy, immorality and difference may therefore help us to understand why it was witchcraft that Europea

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