This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH

HISTORIANS must work with limited information about the past.
First, what is set down is a biased subset to begin with. The experiences of the working class in England before the Industrial Revolution, for example, are much harder to reconstruct than the royal court.
Second, even written records can be lost, crumble away in attics, or be burned in library fires. So the evidence that does survive today from the past is a proportion of what once existed. But what is that proportion?

A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Science has always been mixed up with money and power, but as a decorative facade for megayachts, it risks leaving reality behind altogether, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

