In 1975, the American sociologist Michael Hechter published a book on the evolution of the United Kingdom; fifty years on, its insights are strikingly pertinent to the travails of the post-Brexit union. Internal Colonialism (1975) applied the theory of ‘the...
… ever since 1789, there has been one magic word which contains within itself all imaginable futures, and is never so full of hope as in desperate situations – that word is revolution. Simone Weil Ever since he took office...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QulGsWDQTCM Loneliness is a serious public health issue. The Mental Health Foundation confirms that it makes it harder for people to connect, which leads to fear of social situations, and ultimately makes it more difficult to escape negative thoughts. The...
Campaigning for his third term as president in 2022, Lula da Silva ran on a straightforward message: making Brazil “happy again”. Now, halfway through his third term, macroeconomic indicators paint a fairly rosy picture of the country’s trajectory under his...
Should sexual relationships, with all their complications, really be a benchmark of societal acceptance? Vox Feminae investigates the history of asexuality and aromanticism: pathologized by psychologists and medical professionals, even at times minoritized within LGBTQIA+ communities. Source link...
Cofiwch Dryweryn (remember Tryweryn). The walls exhort us in bright red and white, from Llanrhystud in West Wales to Chicago. And the writing’s not only on the wall: it’s on a sticker on a lamppost outside Camden Market in North...
For three decades after the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, political science and practical politics in Western Europe and North America very rarely addressed Moscow’s efforts to ‘reintegrate’ the ‘post-Soviet space’ (i.e., the former republics of the Union of Soviet...
Sometimes it is almost impossible to escape a feeling of wonder for the abundance of life in our world. Especially on a summer’s day – when bumblebees buzz among flower petals, grasshoppers play in the dry grass, blue-winged butterflies flutter...
Languages’ similarities are not rooted in a special genetics for language. They follow from culture and common information-processing solutions and have their own individual evolutionary stories. Daniel Everett, How Languages Began Nothing great can be expressed in Belarusian, it...
Historians are generally wary of commemorations – fireworks that dazzle the eye only to fade in the same instant. But they are also aware that ‘round number anniversaries’ can provide a unique opportunity to think about contemporary societies in their...
