Topic description and stories

Soul seller: the man who moved people

20 Feb 2014

People trafficking is a billion-dollar business with a history that spans centuries. A new study identifies the beginnings of the modern trafficker...

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Reclining female figure, Clemente Susini, late 18th century,

Skeletons in the cupboard of medical science

13 Feb 2014

In a talk on 17 February, Margaret Carlyle, a researcher in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, will explore the fascinating (often...

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̽»¨Ö±²¥longitude problem: 300-year-old archive opened to the world

18 Jul 2013

It was the conundrum that baffled some of the greatest and most eccentric experts of the 18th century - and captivated the British public during an...

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Charles Towne, Hilly Landscape, Oil on canvas, 38.7cm x 51.1cm (detail)

Views of the landscape

17 May 2013

In a talk on Monday (20 May 2013) Dr Simon Nightingale will explore how painterly interpretations of the countryside were embedded into the...

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Lessons from history: how Europe did (and didn’t) grow rich

24 Mar 2013

̽»¨Ö±²¥Industrial Revolution is seen as the spark that lit Europe’s economic prosperity. In her analysis of markets over many hundreds of years...

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'Madness', James McArdell, after Robert Edge Pine 1760

Care in the community

02 Oct 2012

Historians have long recognised that the family were the chief carers of the mentally ill. A new study will investigate the emotional and economic...

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Crummock Water, Cumbria

Landscape, literature, life

29 Feb 2012

Over the past few years, the genre of ‘nature writing’ has seen a new sense of urgency, fostered by a growing awareness of a natural world under...

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Alexander Crummell 1866

̽»¨Ö±²¥remarkable story of Alexander Crummell

20 Oct 2011

A talk at the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge’s Festival of Ideas this evening will focus on the extraordinary life of Alexander Crummell – the son of a...

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Isaac Newton's Index Chemicus

All is not what it seems: the blurred boundaries between alchemy and medicine

21 Sep 2011

An international conference taking place at Cambridge ̽»¨Ö±²¥ later this week will reveal that for many centuries alchemy and medicine were deeply...

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15th-century manuscript

A scriptorium of commonplace books

01 May 2010

A digital archive of 500-year-old 'filofaxes' offers extraordinary insight into early thought and writing practices.

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Rethinking

Rethinking eccentricity

01 May 2009

Miranda Gill traces shifting 19th-century perceptions of eccentricity, from its association with the intoxicating lure of modernity and fashion to...

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