Politics

After fifteen years spent debating its scientific potential, and despite claims of procedural irregularities and a challenge to the validity of the vote, in March 2024, twelve of the twenty-two members of the international sub-commission on quaternary stratigraphy chose to reject the applicability of the term ‘Anthropocene’ to signal a new geological epoch. For some geologists and Earth System Scientists, the point of such a designation would have been to signal a determinate

The following short essay was written as a supplement to an essay published in 2018 [1] which provided an analytic description of Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche’s political philosophy and vindicated Heidegger’s view of this philosophy as fundamentally technological in nature, representing the final stage of Western metaphysics. As Heidegger put it, ‘in the thought of will to power, Nietzsche anticipates the metaphysical ground of the consummation of the modern age’,

Introduction   Recent scholarship on early photography examines the photograph as primary source material in order to identify and explore ‘veins of influence’ that operate on, through, and from it. The ‘veins of influence’ analysis developed in that research brings us, whether as professional creatives, academics, or other participants, into dialogue with the photograph. Through such engagement, we become active participants in and agents of influence, shaping how these earl

Sarah Dunant is a novelist, broadcaster, and cultural critic whose work blurs the line between historical inquiry and literary imagination. Best known for her fiction set in Renaissance Italy, she gives voice to women whose lives have been obscured by time, deftly merging narrative and historicism. Rendering the past not as backdrop but as pulse, Dunant allows history to unfold with the texture of lived experience. Her acclaimed novels, The Birth of Venus , In the Company of

Abstract   In popular discourse, the idea of ‘renaissance’ is rarely associated with Ancient Egypt, but one has to wonder why. Throughout its long history, the land of the Pharaohs underwent a series of transformations, with centralised kingdoms repeatedly disintegrating into a patchwork of regional polities and then being ‘reborn’ several centuries later under unified rule. The reasons for these transformations, and subsequent revivals, were much the same as those we face no

The adoption of the United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 was a major step for the practice of International Development worldwide. In addition to legitimising the benevolent nature of the UN, the Declaration established a precedent for understanding the human condition as a universal experience. Through the Declaration, all people were declared ‘free and equal in rights’ despite geographical, cultural, or socio-political differences that influence

Introduction   The principle of parliamentary sovereignty has been a long-held tenet of the UK’s unwritten constitution. AV   Dicey outlined its features in 1885. However, 87 years later, the UK became a member of the European Economic Communities, with the European Communities Act 1972 providing the domestic legal basis for EU law in the UK. Lord Denning described EU law as ‘an incoming tide […] [that] cannot be held back’.[1] However, others, such as Professor Phillip Norto

Dog-races, football pools, Woolworth’s, the pictures, Gracie Fields, Wall’s ice cream, potato crisps, Celanese stockings, dart-boards, pin-tables, cigarettes, cups of tea, and Saturday evenings in the four ale bar.[1] This rapid-fire enumeration of distinctive features of Englishness, one of George Orwell’s recurring party-tricks, seems today a tall order. What is it to be English? Those like Tory MP Robert Jenrick rely on inane tautologies: English identity is simply English