The Reform and Opening Up Debate: Betrayal of Maoist Ideas or Chinese Modernisation?
"Let some people get rich first." - Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping, the paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) between 1978-1989 is certainly a controversial character. The so-called ‘Dengist’ policies of ‘Reform and Opening Up’, centred around economic liberalisation (reform) and the ‘Opening up’ of China to global trade. This inarguably transformed China into a new age. His policies and political character seem to receive love and hate in somewhat equal meas
Isaac Bennett
Jul 64 min read
Court Culture and Economics of Display: Renaissance and Modern Europe
In the Renaissance and early modern Europe, splendour was not wasteful but instead strategic. Courtly display functioned as a political economy of power, where wealth, art, and ceremony legitimised authority and shaped cultural identity. Monarchs and the elites used magnificence to communicate hierarchy, divine favour, and stability, transforming luxury into a language of governance. Court culture refers to the social and political ecosystem surrounding monarchs and their ho
Oyin Adisa
Jul 33 min read
The Black Death (1347 – 1353)
The first Black Death pandemic first appeared in the mid 14th century and was thought to be caused by the bacterium ‘Yersinia Pestis,’ in the family Yesiniaceae, order Enterobacterales. The bacterium was not found during the Black Death pandemic but discovered by a Swiss French physician Alexandre Yersin in 1894 during the Hong Kong plague epidemic. Yersin concluded that transmission involved rats and its ectoparasites (Xenopsylla cheopis). Before Yersin’s discovery, the theo
Sophie Sharp
Jul 34 min read
