Ian McKellen finds another actor in the family
As the 'last of the McKellens', Sir Ian admits to a degree of melancholy as he delves into his family history. But the results pay off richly for one of…
Working Class History Podcast – Pirates
Double podcast episode about the Golden Age of Piracy, with historian Marcus Rediker. The legendary pirates of this era weren’t just thieves—they were daring rebels challenging the very systems of…
Defoe and the Distance to Utopia
In Defoe’s Captain Singleton, published a year later, the eponymous pirate comes back home with new notions of equality and communal property. Indeed, as Defoe teaches us, the highest ideals…
Written in the Waters
Tara Roberts
Black Watermen of the Chesapeake
Mid-nineteenth century Maryland offered pseudo-freedom to African Americans who lived and worked on the water.
Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice
by Paula Byrne
Little Ice Age
Professor Suzannah Lipscomb discusses the impact of the Little Ice Age, a period of significant cooling from the 15th to early 19th centuries that caused widespread famine, drought, and socio-economic…
Frankenstein inspired by suicide of Mary Shelley’s half-sister, book reveals
The twin tragedies alter the understanding of the themes of Frankenstein. It is often read as a warning about the perils of science, but as the daughter of Wollstonecraft, England’s…
Conservative MP Antoinette Sandbach
and her family ties to the trans Atlantic slave trade
The Red Violin
The Red Violin (French: Le Violon Rouge) is a 1998 drama film directed by François Girard and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Carlo Cecchi and Sylvia Chang. It spans four centuries…