Category: Academic
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Austerlitz and an Empire’s End: Napoleon and the Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire
Written by Daniel Sharp 2 December 1805: a battle takes place that was to enshrine Napoleon Bonaparte’s reputation as a genius military tactician and which would forever change the map and future of Europe. This battle would end the thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire and would spell the end of the Third Coalition mounted by…
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The Meiji Restoration and its Consequences: 150 Years On
Written by Travis Aaroe True isolation was not possible for any country during the age of imperialism, although few tried harder than Japan under Shogunate rule. Ever since the decisive Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 which heralded the Tokugawa clan’s dominion over the country, Japan had been artificially cut off from the outer world…
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Understanding the foundations of India’s democratic tradition in the postcolonial era
Written by Shruti Venkatraman The recent release of Indian politician Shashi Tharoor’s book, Inglorious Empire, advocating for greater awareness of the blood-soaked history of India’s colonial past under British rule, and the release of the film Viceroy’s House, which was heavily criticized for portraying events covering the final months before Indian independence under Lord Mountbatten…
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The Role of Colonial Legacies in the 2017 Zimbabwe Crisis
By Carissa Chew This article, which is informed by two public lectures about the Zimbabwean political crisis that were held at the University of Edinburgh in the week beginning 20 November, discusses the role of colonial legacies in recent Zimbabwean political affairs. Firstly, this article provides a summary of the Zimbabwean crisis for the reader…
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Viking Zombies – A Research Seminar by Dr Clare Downham
Written by Grace Young Vikings and zombies generally are not things one would naturally think of in the same sentence. They are certainly not things most people would associate with Scotland, either. However, this is exactly what Dr. Clare Downham of the University of Liverpool gave a seminar on. For clarification, while Downham really was…
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Notes from the Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society on Experiencing Medieval Spaces
Written by Daniel Sharp On Monday 23 October, I attended a meeting presented by the Late Antique and Medieval Postgraduate Society. The society is conducting a series of research seminars this year, in which papers and research is presented and discussed. The meeting I attended was not, unfortunately, a seminar – it was a general…
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Austrian Responses to German Nationalism
Written by Travis Aaroe The Austrian Empire was a multi-ethnic domain ruled over by the Habsburg dynasty. After the Congress of Vienna, which ended the Napoleonic Wars, the Empire stretched from Lombardy, Venetia and modern-day Austria in the west to Hungary in the east and, from Croatia in the south to Bohemia and Galicia in…
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Meg Foster’s ‘Black Douglas’: The Bushranger and the Man (Diaspora Research Seminar Review)
Written by Lewis Twiby On Tuesday 31 October, Meg Foster, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New South Wales, gave a research seminar on the infamous bushranger Black Douglas. This was in an effort to highlight her research in this overlooked aspect of Australian national history. During Australia’s gold rush of the 1850s, a…
Retrospect Journal 