Diana Cooper-Richet, Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) – Université Paris-Saclay
In 1825, more than 130 Cornish miners and engineers landed in Mexico to work in the silver mines. Their legacy lives on.
Harvard’s recent CRISPR experiment isn’t just a new frontier for science – it’s also a new take on how we conceive of human history.
gopixa/Shutterstock.com
The CRISPR gene-editing technique raises new questions about how we measure time and conceptualise history. Here, a cultural theorist takes on the philosophical side of this scientific breakthrough.
Otto John, middle, in Berlin in 1954.
German Federal archives/Wikimedia
The violence sparked by the removal of Confederate statues in the US shows the ideas that collect around historical monuments. Sometimes it’s better to remove them; yet they can be an important way of remembering trauma.
A 1765 painting of Helios, the personification of the sun in Greek mythology.
Wikimedia Commons
Today the phrase ‘all roads leads to Rome’ means that there’s more than one way to reach the same goal. But in Ancient Rome, all roads really did lead to the eternal city, which was at the centre of a vast road network.
Customers shop during at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Out of the Closet thrift store in Columbus, Ohio.
Jay LaPrete/AP
The Russian cyberthreat goes back over three decades, extends into the country’s educational systems and criminal worlds, and shows no signs of letting up.
‘The Plantation,’ oil on wood, ca. 1825.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
A system first deployed in South Africa in the early 20th century continues to influence the way travel is monitored today.
In the seventeenth century lawyers, civil servants and other new professionals began to work from offices in Amsterdam, London and Paris.
British Museum/Flickr
Agustin Chevez, Swinburne University of Technology and DJ Huppatz, Swinburne University of Technology
The history of the office illustrates not only how our work has changed but also how work’s physical spaces respond to cultural, technological and social forces.
Celebrity cows: Southern Girl and Iceberg enjoy a ‘hay cocktail’ at the Commodore Hotel in New York.
Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, contact for re-use
What would possess an Antarctic expedition to take dairy cows to the icy continent? Back in 1933, Admiral Byrd did so for reasons of image-making, publicity and territorial ambition.
Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard is removed from the entrance to City Park in New Orleans.
REUTERS/Cheryl Gerber
Thoreau spent his life pursuing the ‘hard bottom’ of truth. But he confronted a sensationalist newspaper industry that, in many ways, mimicked today’s media environment.
Lord Macartney’s first meeting with the Qianlong emperor in 1793.
"A study of History", Arnold Toynbee
Brian Dolber, California State University San Marcos
The newspaper’s new owners harken back to a tradition of labor-led media in the early part of the 20th century, which represented a bulwark against corporate power.