I’m really happy with how the Historian has progressed this term. The team’s been working incredibly hard at coming up with ways to incorporate a more contemporary angle and I’m really happy to announce that we’ll be launching our own website very soon. I’m delighted to see the Historian growing and hope by the end of the year we’ll have a much more widespread paper. I’d also strongly like to encourage students to email in their ideas to us for future articles; even those who aren’t interested in writing. After all, we want to make this magazine more about what History students want to read!
Ata Rahman

We have taken as our theme for this issue an integral part of history, an integral part of being a student (and apparently a lecturer), and an integral part of life itself. I am, of course, talking about drinking: be it tea, beer or any other type of booze. We’ve sent reporters to a beer festival, an exhibition about the Prohibition Movement (the horror, the horror), and had them researching the importance of beverages in British history. Ata has been getting even more of a taste for a subject close to his heart: gin. We have also drawn on the experience of History lecturers for some recommendations for we should be quaffing. So pull a pint, unscrew the cap of a bottle of the house vino, crack open a can or pop the kettle, and enjoy this issue of the Manchester Historian. Cheers!
Charlie Bush