There’s a strange problem facing anyone trying to write fiction today: reality keeps getting there first. Wars unfold live on our phones. Political figures feel less like leaders and more like characters written for maximum attention. Events that would have once been dismissed as too on-the-nose or implausible now pass as ordinary headlines. It’s not...
Scientists at the University of Melbourne have uncovered for the first time how Australia’s iconic Twelve Apostles were formed, finding tectonic plate movements over millions of years lifted and tilted the giant structures out of the sea. Until now, the evolution of the Twelve Apostles had not been well known. University of Melbourne lead researcher Associate Professor Stephen Gallagher from the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences said the tectonic event helped shape the Apostles...
Fear of corruption allegations drove Samuel Pepys to censor official correspondence connecting the Royal Navy, slave trading companies and his own slaves, new research shows. ‘your meriting well of the thing is the only present that shall ever operate with me’- (Samuel Pepys to John Howe, 1675) That Samuel Pepys owned at least two enslaved...
Wars are rarely lost first on the battlefield. They are lost in leaders’ minds − when leaders misread what they and their adversaries can do, when their confidence substitutes for comprehension, and when the last war is mistaken for the next one. The Trump administration’s miscalculation of Iran is not an anomaly. It is the...
Colonialism has been a central part of history around the world, differing only in form over time and space. After all, whenever people have moved from one place to another, they have colonised spaces and other people or forms of life. In Africa, colonialism has mostly been studied as something imposed from outside, for example...
The death of Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), on February 22 was immediately framed as the fall of a narco kingpin. Images of gun battles, torched vehicles and retaliatory violence dominated headlines. Commentators spoke of a power vacuum, of fragmentation, of the possible weakening of one...
On the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, his body will be displayed for the first time ever in February 2026, at the Basilica of San Francesco. Millions of visitors are expected to converge in the small Tuscan town of Assisi to honor the 13th-century saint....
The 35th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, hosted by Morocco, produced thrills and several story lines, some good and others not so good. It ended in a victory for Senegal – their second Afcon championship. While the 1-0 victory over Morocco was deserved, the championship game ended on a sour note as fans...
In the exciting new season of international affairs, the rules have finally been simplified. After decades of tedious debate about sovereignty, international law, and postwar norms, global politics has at last been distilled into a principle simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker: If you can take it, it’s yours. Russia, ever the early...
The first Bible to feature a map of the Holy Land was published 500 years ago in 1525. The map was initially printed the wrong way round – showing the Mediterranean to the East – but its inclusion set a precedent which continues to shape our understanding of state borders today, a new Cambridge study...
