Power

The accumulation of, the acceptance of, and the use of power are all explored in this section. The individual reigns of some monarchs are looked at such as those from the Tudor period, but so are other leaders, despotic and revolutionary. Contemporary issues of the use of power in a democracy are explored are more complex ideas around power through individual actions and movements in history.

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  • My Favourite History Place: The North Wessex Downs and Cwichelm’s Barrow

    Article

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  • Nazism and Stalinism

    Article

    Is it legitimate to compare the Nazi and Stalinist regimes? There might seem little room for doubt. It is often taken as self-evident that the two regimes were variations of a common type. They are bracketed together in school and university courses, as well as text books, under labels such...

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  • New light on Rendlesham

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    New research at a royal palace site close to Sutton Hoo poses fresh questions about the nature of the early Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Christopher Scull and Tom Williamson look at how landscape studies can change our understanding of early English royal rule.

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  • On Black Lives Matter

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    2020 has been an interesting year in many ways – both as a year to make history and one that has sought to tackle many representations of the past. The Black Lives Matter campaign that has taken on new energy across the globe in response to the killing of a...

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  • Out and About: the central Marches of Wales and the Mortimer family of Wigmore

    Article

    Paul Dryburgh and Philip Hume enable us to see the interaction of one prominent family with the area that they dominated. The central Marches span the English/Welsh border in an area that encompasses the picturesque landscapes and market towns of north-west Herefordshire, south-west Shropshire, and Radnorshire which has also the rugged...

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  • Out and about in Zanzibar

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    Joe Wilkinson takes us on a tour of the island of Zanzibar, where the slave trade continued long after the British abolished it. Mention Zanzibar and most people will think of an Indian Ocean paradise, perfect for honeymooners, relaxing on the popular pristine white north-eastern beaches of Bwejuu and Paje,...

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  • Parliament, people or privilege: Do we need a better understanding of constitutional history?

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    Join our panel, including Dr Alix Green, Professor Tony Badger and Professor Justin Champion as they discuss how recent polls and election results have confounded many pundits. Do calls to ‘give us our country back’ or ‘return our sovereignty’ suggest that many people in liberal democracies need a better understanding of...

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  • Personality & Power: The individual's role in the history of twentieth-century Europe

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    What role do individuals wielding great power play in determining significant historical change? And how do historians locate human agency in historical change, and explain it? These are the issues I would like to reflect a little upon here. They are not new problems. But they are inescapable ones for...

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  • Peterloo: HA interview with Mike Leigh and Jacqueline Riding

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    The film Peterloo dramatises the people and events that led to the infamous ‘Peterloo’ massacre in August 1819. Respected film-maker Mike Leigh created the film using historical records and sources from the period, as he and historical adviser Jacqueline Riding explained to the HA in a recent interview, which you can watch below.  

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  • Podcast: Medlicott Lecture 2018 - Justin Champion

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  • Podcast: Re-imagining Democracy

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    This podcast feature Professor Mark Philp of the University of Warwick discussing how people's perceptions of democracy changed between 1750 and 1850 and is based on the findings of the Re-imagining democracy project, begun in 2005 by Joanna Innes and Mark Philp. Re-imagining Democracy: 1750-1850 1. Introduction. Democracy from negative...

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  • Private Lives of the Tudors

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    Tracy Borman explores the distinction between the public and private lives of the Tudor monarchs. The Tudors were renowned for their public magnificence. Perhaps more than any royal dynasty in British history, they appreciated the importance of impressing their subjects with the splendour of their dress, courts and pageantry in order to reinforce their authority. Wherever...

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  • Queen Anne

    Article

    In this pamphlet, James Anderson Winn, author of a recent biography of Queen Anne, recommends a new approach to historians writing about this successful and popular queen. Female, overweight, and reticent, Anne has long been underestimated. Her letters, however, show how well she understood the motives of her ministers, and...

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  • Queenship in Medieval England: A Changing Dynamic?

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    In the winter of 1235-6, Eleanor, the 12 year old daughter of Count Raymond-Berengar V of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy, left her native homeland. She travelled to England to marry King Henry III, a man 28 years her senior whom she had never met. The bride and her entourage...

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  • Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837

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    Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...

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  • Richard III and the Princes in the Tower: update

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    Richard III is one of the most famous kings of England, as much for his Shakespearean mythology as for the reality of his reign. Here, the different accounts of him are explored to shed light on some of his actions and legacy. The fascination evoked by Richard III and the...

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  • Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?

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    After a revolution to remove the monarchy did the French revolutionaries create another leadership of power over ideals? William Doyle re-evaluates the reputation of the so-called architect of terror during the French Revolutionary years. Two recent books reflect a seemingly endless fascination with the man whose downfall brought the end...

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  • Space and behaviour at the court of Alexander the Great

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    Why do we behave in the way that we do? In this article, Stephen Harrison shows how our behaviour is intrinsically linked to the spaces we inhabit and he argues that Alexander the Great adopted spatial features from Persian architecture which altered the nature of his relationship with his subjects....

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  • Stalin, Propaganda, and Soviet Society during the Great Terror

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    Sarah Davies explores the evidence that even in the most repressive phases of Stalin’s rule, there existed a flourishing ‘shadow culture’, a lively and efficient unofficial network of information and ideas. 'Today a man only talks freely with his wife — at night, with the blankets pulled over his head.’...

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  • Stalinism

    Article

    Stalin's remarkable career raises quite fundamental questions for anyone interested in history. Marxists, whose philosophy should cause them to downgrade the role of ‘great men' as an explanation of great events, have problems in fitting Stalin into the materialist interpretation of history: did not this man ride rough-shod over the...

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