Manchester Historian

The Mexican Revolution through Pictures, by Liam York

The Mexican Revolution was a hugely significant moment in modern Mexican history. By 1911, the 34-year dictatorial rule from the Porfirian regime had come to an end, eventually overthrown at the Battle of Ciudad Juárez by a group of revolutionaries, thrusting the country into a decade of social unrest, uprising and uncertainty. Despite this defining moment in Mexican history, it is often hard to reduce the revolution to a singular driver. Political leaders like Francisco Madero represent bourgeois sentiment, yet populist figures like Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa and Emiliano Zapata played a significant role in mobilising the agrarian classes. What can we learn from the photography of the revolution?

What led to the 19th Century Gaelic Revival? By Erin Kilker

The Gaelic revival refers to the revival of interest in the Irish language and Irish Gaelic culture. While this broad movement emerged as early as the 1840s, it rapidly gained traction in the late nineteenth century. A variety of organisations espoused this revival, for example by promoting Gaelic literature or traditional sports.

St Cuthbert’s Coffin: Devotion in Runic and Roman Lettering, by Catrin Haberfield

In 698 A.D., eleven years after his death, St Cuthbert’s body was exhumed and found to be incorrupt. Removed from its subterranean stone sarcophagus in St Peter’s Church, on the monastery island of Lindisfarne, the body was then transferred into a new oak coffin and placed above ground next to the altar. Almost 200 years later, in 875 A.D., this coffin was evacuated from Lindisfarne and for seven years carried across Northumbria by monks evading Danish armies.

Arpilleras against Augusto: Community and Memory in Pinochet’s Chile, by Sarah Cundy

Amidst empty streets in a fearful nation, Chilean women met at churches and in neighbours’ houses to stitch compassionately into fabric their stories of an uncompassionate truth. These pieces documented the realities of life under Pinochet’s military dictatorship and provided the women who made them with a voice, a community, and a means of receiving economic solidarity from abroad.

Category: University

Remembering the Past

Posted On 1st December 20112nd December 2012 By Jenny Ho

We Must Remember to Remember! In cultural history the buzz word of the moment seems to be ‘memory’ and how different social groups, ranging from local communities to nations, remember the past. As I am sure you will agree this does sound a fascinating topic. However, the subject has now become bogged down in a Continue Reading

Category: University

Why study for a PhD?

Posted On 1st December 20112nd December 2012 By Jenny Ho

It’s a valid question. Why spend at least another three or four years slaving away to write the longest piece of work you’ve ever had to struggle with? Well, as any PhD student will tell you, it is hard, but it is also one of the most rewarding experiences you can have at University. In Continue Reading

Category: Behind The Headlines

Interview with Hannah Barker

Posted On 1st December 20112nd December 2012 By Jenny Ho

What first interested you in history? Studying ancient Egypt at primary school made me positive I wanted to be an Egyptologist. Quite how I then made the leap to the C18th I’m not sure, but my early love of ‘historical’ films of the 1950s and 60s (The Vikings, Robin of Sherwood, The Scarlet Pimpernel etc) Continue Reading

Category: University

Leif’s Life Lessons

Posted On 1st December 20112nd December 2012 By Jenny Ho

Five tips for long essay and dissertation magic

Category: Features

Mozart: a musical maestro

Posted On 1st December 20112nd December 2012 By Jenny Ho

“A world that has produced a Mozart is a world worth saving” was the grand declaration of Franz Schubert, and it is true that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart made his mark on history in a way that few other composers have equalled. By any measure, Mozart stands as one of the greatest musical composers of all Continue Reading

Archives