history
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Documentation in the Nazi State Office (NSO), recording the details of the major deportation of Romanies from Osnabrück on 1 March 1943, lists fifty-four people deported to Auschwitz. The document records their names, ages, places of birth, and relationships, alongside an inventory of each person’s personal property.[1] Empirical facts, from single sources such as these, are…
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“We scheme for three meals per day, and for one sleep by night.” M Sing Au The emergence of Chinese cookbooks written for Western audiences began in the first half of the twentieth century, and interest in such publications has continued into the present day. This blog post focuses on these early cookbooks, which largely…
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The debate over why ecclesiastical institutions took so long to become established in medieval Iceland is not new. Between 1940 and 1970, what became known as the ‘Icelandic School’ framed the issue through a binary lens, portraying a society fractured between a clerical, European sphere on one hand, and an indigenous, national, and secular sphere…
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This last week, the Dragon House Chinese Takeaway in York was defaced with racist graffiti. Crude St George’s flags were painted across the shopfront, the word “Chinese” was scratched out, “Cat N Dog” was sprayed onto the window, and on the side of the building, vandals scrawled the words “Go Home.” On a street lined with shops, only the…
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Over the few last months, in the context of diasporic food in Britain, I have written the words ‘authentic’ and ‘authenticity’ many times. Within this process, I have begun to ask myself a series of questions: What is authentic food? Is our perception of authenticity linked to our understanding of a dish’s origin, its assigned…
Bill’s History Blog 