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.

Category: Features

Pompeii: not so different

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

Studying the relics of Pompeii has uncovered evidence providing not only a window into the past, but also a reflection of the present.

Category: Behind The Headlines

Interview with Dr Max Jones

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

Dr. Max Jones is a senior lecturer in Modern History at the University of Manchester. His research and teaching focuses primarily on nineteenth- and twentieth-century British history, with particular interest, among others, in heroism, gender and masculinity; monarchy, empire and national identity; and exploration and technology. We interviewed Max to uncover what history means to him.

Category: Features

Hero or zero?

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

Emperor Nero is as infamous for his brutal measures and unstable mental health as his politics. But what about the man himself? The Manchester Historian sets out to uncover the man behind the madness.

Category: In Culture