Category: Asian and Oceanic

The Deadly Legacy of the Vietnam War, By Eve Henley

Posted On By The Manchester Historian
men in bushes

Upon visiting Phong Nah-Ke Bang – a national park located in the middle of the Annamite Mountains in Vietnam – I was stunned to observe that exploration was not advised without a map marking the unexploded bombs of the area. Despite the war in Vietnam culminating over 45 years ago, the subject of unexploded ordnance is an issue that plagues the inhabitants of not only Vietnam but Laos and Cambodia too, further exacerbating issues of poverty, inaccessibility of farmland and hatred towards the US.

Category: Asian and Oceanic

Remembering Asia-Pacific Natural Disasters, By Emily Jackson

Posted On By The Manchester Historian
House falling over

The Asian-Pacific has undeniably been impacted by devastating natural disasters. Investigating from a socio-economic perspective, cases such as the 2004 Tsunami (a natural disaster so big its death toll reached 227,898 across Indonesia and Thailand), can provide an insight into the severity of the chaos wreaked on communities savaged by the natural world.

Category: Non-Western American

Fidel Castro and the Spirit of Cuba, by James Butler

Posted On By The Manchester Historian

The people of Cuba possess a revolutionary spirit, one of passion, selflessness, tenacity, and long-suffering, unlike that of many other nations. As of 2021, it has been 10 years since Fidel Castro resigned as the leader of Cuba. If anything, Castro’s legacy is contentious because the history of Castro is ultimately the story of a great nation’s independence.

Category: African, Islamic and Arabic

10 Years Since the Arab Spring, by Erin Barnett

Posted On By The Manchester Historian

10 years on from the Arab Spring, we must look back on what happened and why. The Arab Spring was a pro-democracy uprising that spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). By mid-2012 most of the actions against governments had faded, many achieved little and were met by severe violence and curbs on free speech – social media platforms like FaceBook were shut down by governments in an attempt to prevent the spread of revolutionary rhetoric.

Category: British History

An Imperialist Aggressor or the Truly Great Britain? By Harri Talfan Davies

Posted On By The Manchester Historian

An Imperialist Aggressor or The Truly Great Britain? As the populist left and right separated, conversations about Britain’s history of international involvement became dangerously simplistic. Amidst the ongoing culture wars, fuelled by both political division over Brexit and the populist candidates at the last general election, British people have found themselves increasingly segregated by their political opinions, creating a population that no longer exchanges ideas.