Author Archives

Dr Stephen Basdeo

Stephen Basdeo is a historian and writer based in Leeds, UK. He is the author of several peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and popular history books.

Joseph Frank (1770–1842): Editor of Joseph Ritson’s “Robin Hood: A Collection of all the Ancient Poems, Songs, and Ballads” (1795) | Stephen Basdeo

By on

Joseph Ritson (1752-1803), a conveyancer and passionate literary critic, significantly impacted the study of the Robin Hood legend with his 1795 work, “Robin Hood: A Collection of all the Ancient Poems.” His nephew, Joseph Frank, later edited Ritson’s works, updating and adapting them for contemporary audiences while preserving their scholarly essence.

Mario Quintana’s “Functional Architecture” | Stephen Basdeo (Translator)

By on

Quintana, as one biographer states, was a native of Porto Alegre, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul—a place where I have spent a lot of time—and was born in 1906. The son of a pharmacist, as he grew up he found that his intellectual interests lay in the reading of European literature, and he learned to speak Spanish, and developed a good reading knowledge of French and some Russian.

Rebellion and Unrest in the Global Medieval World: A Thematic Overview | Stephen Basdeo

By on

“Though a heavy tax, or a requisition order … might not in itself precipitate a rising, it might do so in the context of strained social relationships … This strain is seen by the peasants from an apparently conservative standpoint. They cannot accept the abandonment of traditional roles by any one of the orders of society—whose basic structure they do not, to begin with, challenge.”