Twenty years on: Luis Moreno Ocampo on the International Criminal Court
Luis Moreno Ocampo provides a unique perspective on the International Criminal Court and its interaction with the War on Terror.
The hidden and fraught development of an International Peace Architecture
The historical evolution of peace has led to the development of a substantial International Peace Architecture (IPA). However, the IPA’s historical development has overall been very slow, hidden, and fraught.
Women in sports: Althea Gibson, Billie Jean King, and their legacies [podcast]
Women’s history in sports has in fact been a long series of shocks that have reshaped the world of athletics as well as the possibilities that exist for women everywhere. In episode 80 of The Oxford Comment, we discussed tennis greats Althea Gibson and Billie Jean King and the legacies for women in sports with scholars Ashley Brown and Susan Ware.
Explore environmental history in eight books [reading list]
Environmental history is one of the most innovative and important new approaches to history. Explore eight of our latest titles in environmental history.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: the past’s resemblance to the present
From the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Elisabeth Leake walks us through how the past resembles the present 40 years on.
Mind the gap: the growth in economic inequality [podcast]
Amid the current economic crises, how do we recover? How can we address such financial distress and inequity, and how might we go about enacting more permanent resolution? Listen to Christopher Howard and Tom Malleson on The Oxford Comment podcast.
Six books from 2022 to add to your 2023 reading list
Here are six books from 2022 that reviewers and critics loved that you should add to your 2023 reading list.
Which book matches your New Year’s resolution? [Quiz]
Are you setting goals for 2023? Check out our quiz for book recommendations based on your resolutions for the new year!
What’s next for China? Sustainability, technology, and the world’s future
We must re-envision our thinking about China’s rise and its role in the world in terms of two newer issue areas, sustainability and emerging technology.
Bringing the Church back in: European state-formation, AD 1000-1500 [long read]
European state-formation would have looked very different if rulers did not constantly have to negotiate with a strong clergy, independent townsmen, and the nobility over, inter alia, the wherewithal for warfare, succession and public peace. But the medieval Church shaped European societies in other ways than this. It was the one institution of late antiquity that survived the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, and it carried the torch of the Roman world after the Empire collapsed.
Defining “democracy”
One week before the 2022 US midterm elections, President Joseph Biden delivered a prime-time address at Union Station in Washington, DC. Biden suggested that something foundational, fundamental, was at stake. He reminded listeners of the definition of democracy.
Gandhi weaves: lyrical beauty in Mahatma Gandhi’s writing
Now I’ve read my Gandhi and while I’ve always found his writing incredibly coherent and often inspired, I haven’t necessarily thought of it as lyrical. I realise now that this is because I had not known where to look.
Five tips to improve your research culture
With principal investigators facing work, life, mental health and career challenges, time is often a limiting factor. But creating a healthy environment helps all achieve and feel well. A typical principal investigator (PI) must overcome many challenges and has a great deal to learn. The experience was accurately portrayed in a recent Twitter post with the caption […]
Interview with Dr Molly Morgan Jones, Director of Policy at the British Academy on SHAPE
At OUP, we are the largest university press publisher of SHAPE disciplines. Back in 2021, we joined the SHAPE initiative along with the British Academy, LSE, the Arts Council, and other key partners to show our support and advocacy for these vitally important areas of research and scholarship.
Transparency in open access at OUP
As a not-for-profit university press which publishes over 75% of its journals on behalf of scholarly societies and other organisations, OUP is committed to a transparent approach to OA. The transition to OA can appear opaque, steeped in jargon and complexity, and we see a major part of our role in the move to OA as being as open and clear as possible.
Sanctions: who uses sanctions, why, and what impact do they have?
Even before the extensive economic sanctions against Russia for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it was hard to browse the news without seeing reports of yet another imposition of sanctions by one country or another.