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After the Black Death

The Black Death: how did the world’s deadliest pandemic change society?

By Mark Bailey

COVID-19 has ignited global interest in past pandemics, and the Black Death of 1346-53 is the worst in recorded history. Recent research has transformed our understanding of this lethal disease, which coincided with environmental stress and rapid climate change. But in the long term it proved a watershed in human history, triggering a range of institutional, economic, and social changes that opened up the route to liberal modernity.

Hot contention, cool abstention

Safety first? Considering protest reasoning 10 years on from the Arab Spring

By Stephanie Dornschneider

Could we expect new mass protests to mark the ten-year anniversary of the Arab Spring? New research investigates the cognitive processes underlying the protests, especially how the desire for “safety and stability” impacts the decision to protest or abstain.

A Century of Miracles, by H. A. Drake

“Nero fiddled… Trump golfs”—but did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned?

By H. A. Drake

“Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs.” Nero’s fiddle is back in the news thanks to Bernie Sander’s criticism of President Trump’s pandemic leadership. But are we being entirely fair to Nero?

Women & Literature: Maya Angelou

By Tasha M. Hawthorne

Angelou’s creative talent and genius cut across many arenas. One of the most celebrated authors in the United States, Angelou wrote with an honesty and grace that captured the specificity of growing up a young black girl in the rural South.

Women & Literature: Zora Neale Hurston

By Susan Butterworth

Susan Butterworth discusses the life and legacy of Zora Neale Hurston. A vibrant figure of the Harlem Renaissance, a fertile interpreter of black folklore, and a lyrical writer – Hurston had a fascinating career. By the time of her death however, she had sadly disappeared into poverty and obscurity.

Women & Literature: Lorraine Hansberry

By Margaret B. Winkerson

In this article from “Black Women in America” (2nd Ed.), Margaret B. Winkerson looks at the life and works of Lorraine Hansberry, author of “A Raisin in the Sun.”

Women & Literature: Alice Walker

By Stefanie K. Dunning

Like all of her heroines, Alice Walker is herself an agent of change. Walker once said that the best role model is someone who is always changing. Instead of desiring a long shelf life, Walker asserts that she wants to remain fresh. This commitment to fluidity and evolution characterizes both her life and her work.

Women & Literature: Toni Morrison

By Daniel Donaghy

Toni Morrison occupies a central place in the literature of twentieth-century America. Her epic themes and characters, her unique and sophisticated style of storytelling, and her ability to recreate urgent, long-silenced voices have expanded what readers know about African American history and what they understand about the complex, often confusing relationships between race and gender in contemporary society.

John Donne & the Conway Papers

Finding the Melford Hall Manuscript

By Daniel Starza Smith

The Melford Hall Manuscript is a large, expensively bound manuscript volume containing previously unknown witnesses of nearly 140 poems by John Donne (1572-1631), one of the most outstandingly significant poets and preachers of the early modern period. Discovered by Gabriel Heaton of Sotheby’s during a routine survey of Melford Hall in Suffolk, and restored by sale by the prestigious […]

The Shogun's Silver Telescope by Timon Screech

An astronomically good deal: King James I and the Shogun’s silver telescope

By Timon Screech

Over the winter of 1610-11, a magnificent telescope was built in London. It was almost two metres long, cast in silver and covered with gold. This was the first telescope ever produced in such an extraordinary way, worthy of a great king or emperor. Why was it made and who was it going to?

The Emotions of Internationalism

The role of the university in international cooperation

By Ilaria Scaglia

Universities are crucial for international understanding and cooperation, especially during a pandemic. In the midst of a pandemic, we seldom hear universities mentioned as crucial sites for international understanding and cooperation.

25 years of Very Short Introductions: listen to the anniversary podcast series

By Rebecca Parker

In 2020 we are proud to be celebrating the 25th anniversary of our Very Short Introductions. Listen to concise and original podcast episodes by our Very Short Introductions authors on a variety of dynamic topics for wherever your curiosity may take you.

Oxford Research Encyclopedias

Social studies: learning the past to influence the future

By Tommy Ender

Learning history is complex; it requires an individual to be a critical thinker, develop different interpretations of history, and engage in analytical writing. I encourage these skills in my undergraduates when we discuss the past. However, within the US’ K-12 system, social studies have been relegated to the sidelines as education policymakers and administrators have focused on math and science since the start of the 21st century.

Diseases in the District of Main 1772-1820

The Jeremiah Barker Papers: medicine as practiced 200 years ago

By Richard Kahn

This is the story of a lost manuscript, an unpublished book written 200 years ago by a rural physician in New England—not one of the elites, but a preceptor-trained doctor who spent his long life taking care of people and writing about it.

Athens After Empire

Capturing your “rude” conqueror

By Ian Worthington

Roman civilization is one of the foundation stones of our own western culture, and we are often exposed in newspaper and magazine articles, books, and even TV documentaries to the glories of Roman art, architecture, literature (the chances are you’ve read Virgil’s Aeneid), rhetoric (we’ve all heard of Cicero), even philosophy. Yet in the late first century BC the Roman poet Horace wrote: “Captive Greece captured her rude conqueror and introduced her arts to the crude Latin lands” (Epistle 2.1.156). Did he really mean that Rome owed its cultural and intellectual heritage to the Greeks?

Athens After Empire

Down but never out

By Ian Worthington

The Athenians were in a panic in 490 BC. A Persian army had landed at Marathon, on the coastline east of Athens, intent on capturing the city and even conquering all Greece. The famous battle of Marathon was Athens’ coming of age as a military power; a decade later its navy helped to block another Persian invasion (led by Xerxes), a stepping-stone to Athens’ rise as a wealthy imperial power.