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Replicating past mistakes? The Irish government, survivors, and the mother and baby homes report

Aoife O’Leary McNeice (@aolmcn) On January 13 2021 the Irish Taoiseach Michéal Martin made a public apology to the survivors of mother and baby homes. ‘It is the duty of a republic’ he said, ‘to accept parts of our history which are deeply uncomfortable’. Martin’s predecessors made similar apologies. In May 1999, then Taoiseach Bertie…
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Mentalités and Body Politics: Aspects of Our Pandemic Global Microhistory

By Weiao Xing (@WeiaoX) In early January 2020, a newsletter disclosed an unknown pneumonia spreading through Wuhan, China.[i] This understated report failed to lade me with extreme anxiety on an otherwise ordinary day in Cambridge. Many of my peers did not anticipate any interruption to our annual schedule of international trips, but lockdowns and travel…
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Helen Sunderland – Historian Highlight

In the first post in the series, Helen Sunderland explains her research looking into the history of schoolgirl politics in late Victorian and Edwardian England.
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Protestant Echoes and the Spirit of Calvinism

By Rory Bannerman (@BannermanRory) If there is a work of sociology that has held more attention, generated more discussion, and created more controversy than any other, it is Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Released in 1905, its premise is based on Weber’s observation that Protestants, in particular Calvinists, appear to…
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David Lyndsay’s Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estatis

By Kate McGregor (@ks_mcgregor) David Lyndsay is perhaps Scotland’s best, but least well known, poet and playwright.[1] Yet his work both reflects the vibrant culture of early modern Scotland and the deeply political ramifications drama could have during this period. One could imagine that the performance of a play written by Lyndsay was an eagerly…
