Explaining Things to People Who Don’t Want to Hear Them By the time they reach Year 11, most of my students have already made up their minds. About politics, about science, about what matters and what’s a waste of time. It’s not that they’ve deeply studied the issues. It’s that they’ve absorbed enough headlines, slogans, … Read more
The Sweet Revolution: How Ancient Seafarers Created the World’s First Global Economy
Long before European colonisers turned sugar into an engine of slavery and empire, Austronesian mariners carried the precious cane across half the globe in one of history’s greatest agricultural dispersals—and inadvertently laid the foundations for globalisation itself The Mountain Discovery That Changed Everything In the misty highlands of New Guinea, 10,000 years ago, someone made … Read more
The party after Somerset v Stewart
The Gathering Storm The summer of 1772 hung heavy over London like unfinished business. In the narrow passageways threading through Westminster, where the cobblestones still held the day’s heat and the air carried the mingled scents of coal smoke and Thames mud, something unprecedented was stirring. It was not revolution—not yet—but recognition. A moment when … Read more
The Last Open Door: Shanghai’s Jewish Sanctuary
In the humid streets of Shanghai, where the Huangpu River meets the East China Sea, an extraordinary sanctuary emerged—not through grand design, but through the peculiar accidents of history. Between the 1840s and 1940s, this bustling port became home to one of the world’s most diverse Jewish communities, a testament to human resilience in the … Read more
THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND
When George Dangerfield published The Strange Death of Liberal England in 1935, his central thesis was as provocative as it was prescient. Britain’s Liberal Party, which had swept to a commanding victory in 1906, had not been killed by the Great War—it had already died a political death by 1914. The war merely provided the … Read more
Decline in UK House Prices in the 1890s: Causes and Context
House prices in Britain stagnated or declined in the late Victorian era, particularly about incomes. Between the mid-1800s and early 1900s, housing became steadily more affordable as wage growth outpaced house price growth. One analysis finds that from 1850 up to the 1940s, the ratio of house prices to incomes was on a downward trajectory, … Read more
The Great Trappaner: How a Goldsmith Became England’s Most Notorious Schemer
The true story of Thomas Violet—government spy, economic manipulator, and anti-Semitic conspirator who betrayed everyone he knew in pursuit of gold London in the 1630s was a city intoxicated by its possibilities. The Thames bustled with ships carrying Mediterranean silks, Baltic timber, and East Indian spices. At the same time, the Tower Mint coined over … Read more
Sugar, Credit, and Fragile Power: The Dutch Colonies of Essequibo and Demerara, 1771–1777
Between 1771 and 1777, the Dutch colonies of Essequibo and Demerara stood at a pivotal crossroads, economically buoyed by an influx of Amsterdam capital, politically reorganised under the influence of the West India Company (WIC), and socially strained under the weight of plantation violence and contested legality. The expansion of Dutch credit marked this period, … Read more
AI Doesn’t Understand Truth. It Only Sounds Like It Does.
A funny thing happens when you talk to an AI. It doesn’t matter how sophisticated the system is—ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, whatever—the same uncanny feeling returns. It sounds smart. Sometimes astonishingly so. It can mimic a scientist, a seventh grader, a therapist, or a pirate. It tells jokes, follows instructions, and writes sonnets. But push it … Read more
Jacob Bogman: Maroon Hunter, Cartographer, and Colonial Patriarch
In the humid twilight of the Dutch colonial empire, where the boundaries between civilisation and wilderness blurred like watercolours in tropical rain, Jacob Bogman carved his name into history through violence, ambition, and relentless pursuit of status. His life, spanning the middle decades of the 18th century, illuminates the brutal mechanics of colonial expansion and … Read more