Category: Colonisation

  • Lacquer as Art and Medicinal Material in Early Modern England

    Lacquer as Art and Medicinal Material in Early Modern England

    CHENG HE Look up the word ‘lacquer’ in an art dictionary, or on Google, and you usually find the word ‘varnish’; a sticky liquid applied to the surface of objects to form a shiny coating. The word can also refer to the objects coated with varnish themselves, which are sometimes decorated with additional materials like…

  • Deep Mapping Migrant Settlerhood: Unfolding histories of Finns in Canada

    Deep Mapping Migrant Settlerhood: Unfolding histories of Finns in Canada

    DR SAMIRA SARAMO At the turn of the twentieth century, Finnish migrants, drawn by the familiar landscape of lakes, forests, and rocky outcrop, settled in the rugged wilderness of Northern Ontario in Canada and overcame the harsh conditions of the early years through their inherent Finnish characteristic of “sisu” (determination, perseverance, guts)… or so the story…

  • Historians Call for a Review of Home Office Citizenship and Settlement Test

    Historians Call for a Review of Home Office Citizenship and Settlement Test

    21 July 2020 Historians Call for a Review of Home Office Citizenship and Settlement Test We are historians of Britain and the British Empire and writing in protest at the on-going misrepresentation of slavery and Empire in the “Life in the UK Test”, which is a requirement for applicants for citizenship or settlement (“indefinite leave…

  • How to Run an Empire: Early Modern Style

    How to Run an Empire: Early Modern Style

    L.H. Roper Dr C. Annemieke Romein recently offered a very helpful discussion here of how the habitual misunderstanding and misuse of nineteenth-century characterisations of ‘-isms’ and ‘the state’ continue to obscure our understanding of the nature and history of European government prior to 1789.  With Dr Romein’s permission and assistance, this post will extend her…