Before race mattered: what archives tell us about early encounters in the French colonies

16 November 2016

As Europe expanded its overseas colonies, fixed ideas of racial differences took hold. Historian Dr Mélanie Lamotte, whose forebears include a slave, is researching a brief period when European notions of ethnicity were relatively fluid.  Early French settlers believed that non-white inhabitants of the colonies could be ‘civilised’ and ‘improved’.

Read More

Innovating for the future of cities

01 June 2016

Today, we commence a month-long focus on the future of cities. To begin, Doug Crawford-Brown, Robert Mair and Koen Steemers describe the challenges our future cities will face and how mitigation depends on the innovations we create and put in place today. 

Read More

̽»¨Ö±²¥man we love to hate: it’s time to reappraise Thomas Robert Malthus

18 May 2016

Thomas Robert Malthus, who was born 250 years ago, became notorious for his ‘principle of population’.  He argued that, because poverty was inevitable, some people would not find a seat at ‘nature’s table’ and would perish. In a new book, historians at Cambridge and Harvard set the life and work of this contentious thinker within a wider context – and look in particular at his engagement with the world beyond Europe.

Read More

Pages