Edges of Empire

The development of the Pictish symbol system : inscribing identity beyond the edges of Empire

The origins and evolution of writing was one of the most critical developments in world history, with a range of dramatic transformations in human society ascribed to literacy (Innes 1998: 3). Writing can instigate a revolution in the forms and possibilities of communication and has been directly linked to state formation in many social contexts and time periods across the world (Baines 1995: 4...

Racism, Empire and Sociology

‘[T]he entity called Europe was constructed from the outside in as much as from the inside out.’ So wrote Mary Louise Pratt, at the start of Imperial Eyes (1992: 6), her insightful account of colonial travelogue. Pratt’s point provides a pithy summary of one of the central claims of what was, at the time, the still emerging field of postcolonial studies (in which context, of course, Imperial Ey...

Twilight of Empire: a Narrative

Sports of the Byzantine Empire

From the fourth century A.D. until the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the people of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire participated in a wide range of sports and physical recreations. Most of these activities were inherited from Greek and Roman civilizations, or were introduced through contacts with Asia Minor and Crusading Europe. Some sport forms disappeared after a few centuries, while o...

The British Empire Exhibition