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The untold story of how Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party envisioned Britain’s post-war future, as told through the iconography of William Blake’s poem, and Sir Herbert Parry hymn, and how both the Conservative Party and the Labor Party of 1945 were inspired to create radically different visions of Britain’s post-war future based on Blake’s message.
This playlist with annotations that I have put together is not intended to be a “best-of” George Harrison (although all the songs here would easily be on such a playlist). Nor is it meant to be exclusive—one could easily devise a playlist with ten different “quintessential” George Harrison songs: one that would include “My Sweet Lord,” “It’s All Too Much,” “I Me Mine,” “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth),” “Blue Jay Way,” and, of course, “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun.”
Today, 22 September, marks the 90th anniversary of the Gresford mining disaster. To this day, the bodies of 253 miners remain in the pit underground below Wrexham. In 1934, the industry was rocked by the inquest into the disaster where accusations of forged documents, preventable deaths, and inadequate safety protocols were highlighted, echoing contemporary inquiries into disasters, such as the damning inquest into Grenfell which was published earlier this month. Nowadays, the disaster is remembered as a poignant moment in Welsh history.
In art, a figleaf is used to barely cover something one isn’t supposed to show in public. I use the term ‘figleaf’ for utterances (and sometimes pictures, or other things) which barely cover for speech of a sort one isn’t supposed to openly engage in. When someone says “I’m not a racist but…” and then […]
Dogwhistles are one of the most discussed methods for politicians to play on voters’ racial attitudes in a stealthy manner, although they come in handy for manipulation on other topics as well. The key to a dogwhistle is this hiding of what’s really going on. Broadly speaking, a dogwhistle is a bit of communication with an interpretation that seems perfectly innocent—but which also does something else.
Who was Charles Darwin the geologist? Was he a nephew, or maybe a cousin, of the illustrious naturalist, who first published the theory of evolution by natural selection? I know they had big families… But no, this is the one and the same. It is often forgotten that, early in his career, Charles Darwin was a ‘card-carrying’ geologist.
How can the United States best help Israel defend itself against terrorist atrocity? Obviously, sustaining the alliance and friendship with the United States is vital for Israel and its security. Equally clearly, the scale and nature of Israeli violence in Gaza since October 2023 has placed new and great strain on the US relationship.
In complex ways, social inequalities create the conditions for people to feel that writing anonymously might be useful for them. On top of this, social crises create anxious contexts, when the receipt of a threatening, obscene, or libellous anonymous letter might seem especially hazardous.
The concept of global science was not new in the nineteenth century. Nor was that of government-sponsored science. But during the 1830s and 1840s, both of these concepts underwent a profound transformation: one that still has ramifications over today’s relationship between specialist knowledge and the modern nation state.
John Eglin, author of “The Gambling Century” examines a portrait supposedly by William Hogarth to explore the history of gambling in Georgian England.
Was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which was inaugurated in January 1801, unique? It has certainly been uniquely recognised as the “United Kingdom,” or (more simply) the “UK.” But how far does this recognition reflect the UK’s exceptional multinational structures?
“Paris is the place to make money, & England is the country to enjoy it.” With what we think we know about capitalism in England and France circa 1790, it is hard to fathom how exactly, a banker in London could have come to this conclusion.
What is the nature of the British army’s exceptionalism in constitutional, political, social, cultural, and military terms?
On this episode of The Oxford Comment, we explore two recognizable components in contemporary conversations on gender and gendered violence: that of “toxic masculinity” and of the #MeToo movement with scholars Robert Lawson and Iqra Shagufta Cheema.
In this podcast episode, we discuss the history of the gun debate in the US with Robert J. Spitzer and how a reform of policing can deter gun violence with Philip J. Cook.
Scholars continue to explore the role of sexuality in private lives—from the retrospective discovery of transgendered people in historical archives to present questions of identity and representation in social media—with the understanding that those who identify as LGBTQ+ have always existed and have fought tirelessly to advance their rights.