In William Shakespeare’s comedy Merchant of Venice, the play’s heroine Portia sings: Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart or in the head. If you look at Valentine’s Day cards, it’s clear fancy…
Selma director and co-writer Ava DuVernay has crafted a new and important vision of an oft-examined era in our nation’s history.
Stanley Wolfson/Library of Congress
Hollywood films that depict American history deeply influence our sense of national identity. Films that portray Civil Rights and Black Freedom history are particularly important. Beyond entertaining moviegoers…
Spices and other aromatics have been a driving force in human history.
Wikimedia Commons
Traditional Christmas and winter food and drinks such as mulled wine, eggnog, ginger bread and fruitcakes often call for more than a dash of what Jamie Oliver calls “festive spices” – cloves, cinnamon…
The Trinidad-born Australian novelist Ralph de Boissière migrated to Melbourne in 1948 to escape Trinidad’s colour/class hierarchy.
Breakdown Press
Growing up with a Jamaican grandmother in 1970s small-town Australia was unusual. There weren’t any other Caribbean (or West Indian) people living nearby and a Caribbean community did not exist in Newcastle…
At least no one got their head cut off …
Emilio Lavandeira Jr/EPA
Another game, another bite. That’s the allegation against Uruguayan Luis Suárez, anyway, who has been accused of sinking his teeth into an opposition player. For the third time. But a mid-game nibble on…
Ritzy red wine has come to represent political influence-peddling in the resignation of NSW premier Barry O'Farrell.
AAP/Julian Smith
Political scandals, the perennial product of the grinding gears of greed and governance, proliferate in the age of digital media, the 24-hours news cycle and anti-corruption bodies with wide powers. Constant…
Lehrer… were we meant to forget this?
Bernd Weissbrod/EPA
German approaches to the history lessons of World War I are characterised by a sense of distance and an anti-war attitude. But probably the most striking feature of the way Germany teaches its children…
Oxfam has announced the latest set of results from its Behind the Brands project to influence ten leading food and beverage companies to reform their supply chains. The charity’s efforts are only the most…
Sections of the Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles in London’s British Museum.
Matthew Fearn/PA
Several members of the cast of the film The Monuments Men made headlines for expressing the view that the British Museum should return the Elgin Marbles to Athens after their “very nice stay” of 200 years…
Economic hardship makes for blue books.
Nerissa's Ring
Literature has mirrored the shifting economic climate over the past century, according to a study published today by researchers in Bristol and London. When times are tough financially, it seems, books…
International protests against Russia’s anti-gay laws are the latest in a long history of attempts to boycott international sporting events.
EPA/Gideon Markowicz
The mantra that “sport and politics don’t mix” was always false and misleading, but in the age of Twitter it’s absurd. Calling for boycotts of high-profile sporting events is an established political tactic…
Some of us learned to stop worrying and love the bomb; some of us didn’t.
Tim Ireland/PA Wire
Radioactivity is dramatic. You can’t smell it, taste it, or see it. You may be powerless to avoid it. Nuclear history is a story of dramatic contrasts, of hope and tragedy. Worldwide excitement over Marie…
Smash the system, not traffic lights.
flikr/bobaliciouslondon
A fifth of Britain’s young people are out of work; how long before they snap? The International Labour Organisation has recently issued warnings about possible youth unrest in the future, as young people…
It’s time for the National Museum to look to the future.
Sam Ilić
In an election year we need to remember that, in recent years in Australia, history has been the subject of fierce party politics, and we should spare a thought for our museum sector. In 1996, at the Sir…
It’s estimated that in 2011 a truly staggering 1.8 zettabytes of digital information was created. Or to put it in more meaningful terms, that’s 57.5 billion 32-gigabyte iPads full. Recent articles about…
Former Prime Minister John Howard is misinformed about the Australian history curriculum.
AAP Image/Julian Smith
There is a great deal of derogatory, evidence-free and ill-informed opinion about how history is taught in Australian schools. But these tired arguments are so often repeated that we can actually put them…
Gore Vidal will be remembered as one of the great English language essayists of the 20th century.
Mark Coggins
American author and essayist Gore Vidal died at his home on Tuesday from complications of pneumonia. The 86 year old was the author of 25 books, including the historical novels Burr and Lincoln. He also…
The history of the vibrator is improbable, with some fascinating milestones.
Giampaolo Squarcina
Vibrators have been causing a buzz for as long as they’ve existed: sometimes this happens behind closed doors, and sometimes in the public sphere. But as the new film Hysteria shows, there’s still fascination…
The amateur radio satellite, Australis Oscar V, is an important part of our spacefaring history.
Alice Gorman
A few weeks ago astronauts on the International Space Station hid in escape capsules following concerns a piece of space junk was going to collide with the station. The collision didn’t eventuate but the…