Was the Black Death racist?
Even the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century, we are now being told, practised racial discrimination as it raged through…
Tracey Emin and the problem with museum trustees
The Royal Academy has nominated Tracey Emin to be a trustee of the British Museum. There is quite a fanfare…
Why are Cambridge University’s librarians judging ‘problematic’ books?
Librarians across Cambridge University are on the look out. Their target, among the ten million-odd volumes in the main library…
Sic transit gloria mundi
Katherine Pangonis also traces the histories of Tyre, Antioch, Syracuse and Ravenna, once proud centres of government, trade and culture
Our future life on Earth depends on the state of the ocean
As the world’s thermometer, the ocean keeps everything in balance, but carbon emissions and our use of it as a dumping ground is threatening its life, says Helen Czerski
Why is Netflix pretending that Cleopatra was black?
‘I remember my grandmother saying to me: I don’t care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black.’ So…
Was Leonardo da Vinci’s mother a slave?
There is great excitement in Italy, which has spilled over into the British press: Carlo Vecce, a professor from Naples,…
Captain Cook’s Aboriginal spears belong in Cambridge, not Australia
On the eve of the First World War, Trinity College, Cambridge deposited four spears collected by Captain Cook during his…
Why has president Xi got my book about the Mediterranean?
A few days ago, an email arrived from someone I know in China: my book The Great Sea had been…
Harry isn’t the first rebellious ‘spare’
Rebellious ‘spares’ are a feature of history
Why the Rosetta Stone shouldn’t be returned to Egypt
The Rosetta Stone is said to be the most visited object in the British Museum. By and large the most…
Courage on the high seas
The Shetland Islands and the Faroes may seem to be somewhere out there in distant waters, marginal and in the…
The culture wars have crept into Oxbridge admissions
The negative discrimination of Oxbridge admissions
Bitter harvest – how Ukraine’s wheat has always been coveted
Publishers love books with ambitious subtitles such as ‘How Bubblegum Made the Modern World’, and this one’s, about American wheat…
Were old children’s history books racist?
Are children’s history books racist?
Masters of the opium trade: the fabulous wealth of the Sassoons
David Abulafia admires the shrewdness, generosity and panache of the Sassoons over many generations
Why does Priyamvada Gopal find ‘eloquence’ troubling?
Why should anyone feel insulted when they are described as ‘eloquent’? Priyamvada Gopal, professor of post-colonial studies at Cambridge University, felt…
Rhodes, Columbus and the next heritage battle
On 12 October this year, Columbus Day, a statue of the Italian in Belgrave Square was vandalised by activists from…
What’s behind Cambridge’s anonymous reporting system?
What’s behind Cambridge’s anonymous reporting system?
University challenge: conservatives are now the radicals on campus
Conservatives are now the radicals on campus
The many uses of frankincense and myrrh
‘And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down,…
No, racism isn't a 'creation of white people'
I remember that, as a small child, I was told not to talk when my father took me inside the…
We should build more memorials to controversial people
It is hard to find benign examples of imperialism
