This week sees an important moment in the history of the Guardian with the launch of Cotton Capital, a series revealing the links between the 19th-century Manchester founders of the newspaper, the transatlantic cotton industry and the enslaved labour upon which the trade was built.
The links have been established in academic research commissioned by the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian. As the historian and Scott Trust board member David Olusoga explains, they also reflect the illusory nature of British history in general, which has long preferred to focus on celebrating abolition rather than to acknowledge its messy complicity in the slave economy.
Guardian designer Ellen Wishart’s theme for the cover of this special edition of the magazine uses a thread, linking our past to our present, to create the image of an eye, representing our vision of how we see the world. It makes a compelling opener for the set of illustrations inside the magazine by Elisabeth Michiel, who drew all her images for Olusoga’s essay with one continuous line.
In addressing our past, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, writes that the organisation is “facing up to, and apologising for, the fact that our founder [John Edward Taylor] and those who funded him drew their wealth from a practice that was a crime against humanity”. In the coming months, we will continue to explore this history and its lasting impact.
In France, national protests against the proposed increase to the pension age have become so inflamed that a state visit by Britain’s King Charles had to be postponed. Kim Willsher reports on a wave of anger and how women are at the forefront of the demonstrations.
As if life wasn’t pressurised enough already for top-level football referees, the advent of video assistant technology only seems to have made the job even harder than ever, leading to a slew of controversial decisions. From hotel breakfasts to being holed up in front of TV monitors, William Ralston goes behind the scenes with the men and women in black.
On the Culture pages, there’s also a great interview with the indie supergroup Boygenius, whose band members Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker talk to Laura Barton about songwriting, friendship and group therapy.
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