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Trump and Brexit: What do they owe to economists?
Society, Politics & Law

Trump and Brexit: What do they owe to economists?

...world of stable parameters and given preferences, with little or no product or policy innovation – where history is a good guide to the future – this assumption might be perfectly valid. Competitive forces would tend to favour those who rationally use the evidence available and calculate probabilities correctly. In such circumstances, it would be as unwise as it is...
Ireland and the Battle of The Somme
OpenLearn Ireland

Ireland and the Battle of The Somme

...World War One, a campaign lasting four and a half months, and fought over a twenty-mile front near the Somme. In February 1916 Allied commanders had decided to launch an infantry offensive there, beginning on 1st July. Their ill-defined intention was to relieve pressure on Verdun and the Eastern front, wear down and drive back German forces and, over-optimistically,...
Studying Environments and Societies
Society, Politics & Law

Studying Environments and Societies

...world plays its part, as well as the human world. So decisions aren't just made by-humans for-humans, but there is some kind of way in which we can allow the non-human world to participate in that. So one of the weeks in block five of the module will return to that separation of nature and culture that we had very early in the module, and will look at different ways of...
The Open University at 45: What can we learn from Britain's distance education pioneer?
Society, Politics & Law

The Open University at 45: What can we learn from Britain's distance education pioneer?

...world in the mid-19th century. For another, would-be reformers had a long history of over-promising and under-delivering when it came to educational technology; as far back as 1922, for example, Thomas Edison declared that “the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system.” Little wonder, perhaps, that the OU’s radically democratic experiment...
Why Do Historians Disagree?
History & The Arts

Why Do Historians Disagree?

...world. In a suggestive 1984 article entitled ‘The present and the past in the English industrial revolution’ published in the journal Past and Present David Cannadine demonstrated how historical accounts of the industrial revolution have been influenced by the political, social and economic climate of the time in which the historian was writing rather than that of the...
Butetown Carnival: past, present, and future
History & The Arts

Butetown Carnival: past, present, and future

...world. In Wales, there were already traditions, such as Mari Lwyd, where people would dress up and sing or tell each other stories, going from household to household. People with makeshift instruments would perform in the streets and were paid in food and drink. These elements of Carnival were already there, over a hundred years ago. As well as this, a travelling fair...
Impossible Peace 2: The murders at Massereene
OpenLearn Ireland

Impossible Peace 2: The murders at Massereene

...world is capable of this? Yesterday, hours before the attack in Craigavon, Sir Hugh Orde discussed the security picture with the Prime Minister. If he feels he needs something more, then he will ask for it, but he stresses that "you have to be realistic about this". There is no such thing as perfect security or a complete intelligence picture - never has been. For all the...
Should we read John Locke today?
Society, Politics & Law

Should we read John Locke today?

...world to ours, and correspondingly held very different beliefs? To explore these questions, you are first going to look at the life of one key classic thinker of freedom, John Locke. Who was Locke and why does he matter? [Portrait of John Locke, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. Source of Entry: Collection of Sir Robert Walpole, Houghton Hall, 1779.]John Locke (pictured left) was...