Histories

The memoirs of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw are among the most significant Western sources portraying the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century. Sent on a diplomatic mission and later taken captive, Wratislaw offers a dual image of the Empire: as a powerful, well-organised state and as a despotic regime evoking fear. His account reveals two contrasting perceptions of the Ottoman court and administration. While their rigid authoritarianism challenged Western admiration for Ottoman governance, it also reinforced existing notions of Oriental despotism. The shifting diplomatic conduct and hostile treatment of the Bohemian delegation further shaped the Ottomans as unreliable and deceptive in Western eyes. Culturally, Wratislaw presents the Ottomans as “the other civilization,” highlighting differences in religion, lifestyle, and social structure. Yet he also acknowledges their hospitality, generosity, and religious tolerance. This study examines how Wratislaw’s personal experiences reflect broader Western imaginations of the Ottoman world. It argues that cultural and diplomatic encounters shaped a complex and often ambivalent image, influenced by both structural dynamics and individual perspectives. Positioned at the intersection of historical sociology and imagology, the article contributes to the understanding of cross-cultural perception in early modern diplomacy.

This essay examines six depictions of the 1898 suicide of New Zealand businessman and politician William Larnach: four historical narratives and two dramatic/fictional depictions. Drawing on the insights of postmodern historiographers like Hayden White, I argue that these tellings reflect an increasing influence of the Hippolytus myth, a culturally authorized narrative rooted in traditional British colonial education structures and Antipodean reception of classics. In particular, as New Zealand shifted away from British identification to a distinctly Kiwi identity, classics legitimized New Zealand culture within a global north from which the Antipodean nation is geographically isolated. Analyzing depictions of Larnach’s death and the possible incestuous scandal leading up to it reveals important historiographic insights both into how history is conceptualized and emplotted and into how Antipodean cultures navigate their positions on the fringes of a larger global north primarily seated in Europe and North America.

This study examines the social, economic and cultural impacts that Latin American women face due to climate-induced displacement, considering these impacts as arenas of conflict and negotiation. Using an intersectional framework, the study analyses how climate disasters exacerbate structural inequalities rooted in patriarchal systems, thereby constraining women’s adaptive capacity while simultaneously catalysing resistance strategies. Through a comparative analysis of Bangladesh and the Dry Corridor in Central America using a Gender Vulnerability Index (GVI), the study reveals that displaced women navigate contested spaces, disputing access to resources, legal recognition and territorial belonging, while constructing transnational solidarity networks and cooperative economies. The emergence of women climate refugees challenges international legal frameworks, exposing critical gaps in protection regimes. The findings emphasise the need for gender-responsive policies that recognise women as transformative agents who negotiate power asymmetries in contexts of environmental crisis, not merely as vulnerable populations. This research contributes to our understanding of the nexus between climate change, gender and migration by foregrounding the dialectic of domination and agency in Latin American displacement processes.