Alex Dworjanyn’s investigation into ‘Human Rights, Women’s Rights and the Middle East’ and Anisha Senaratne’s creative exploration of Dubai as ‘a Jeckle [sic] and Hyde city’ provide snapshots into the plight of women in the Middle East; and three articles focus on leadership in the United States: Cameron Steer’s ‘Why Eisenhower Approved the 1953 Coup in Iran’, William Stephenson’s ‘Permanent Problems in Post 9/11 Society’, and Nicholas Mills’s clunkily titled article, ‘How Has the Mass Media ... Changed the Leadership Styles of the US Presidents’.

Memorable essays include Alistair Clark’s ‘Spectacula in First Century AD Pompeii’, on gladiatorial shows and hunts in Pompeian amphitheatres, and Samantha Sutton’s ‘Barbie: The Power of Mattel to Shape Children’s Identities’. However, Jasmine Tremblay’s investigation into ‘MicroRNA and Disease Profiling’ is the most striking, because of its commitment to furthering scientific research. The standout essays are by academics Jane Freemantle and Linda Kouvaras, who seamlessly merge original thought with research in their specialist areas of health and music, respectively.

The editorial policy to publish work free from jargon is laudable, but some of the essays read like term papers and fail to engage with wider scholarship. Ormond Papers provides an important forum for publishing the work of promising scholars, and this volume gives the reader an insight into the way early-career scholars are thinking about the world. It is disappointing that biographical notes are not provided.