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The emergence of the first civilisations
Historian article
Paul Bracey – The emergence of civilisations provided fundamental changes in the capacity for human development. This said, they exhibited similarities, differences, frailties, negative and positive attributes and should be related to a broadly based appreciation of the past.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the assumption was that...
The emergence of the first civilisations
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The Historian 146: Civilisations
The magazine of the Historical Association
4 Reviews
5 Editorial (Read article)
6 The emergence of the first civilisations: many contexts, significant changes but is this the whole story? – Paul Bracey (Read article)
11 The many queens of Ancient Egypt – Joyce Tyldesley (Read article)
17 Out and About in Paestum – Trevor James (Read article)
20 Space...
The Historian 146: Civilisations
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Film: Foreign Relations and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film Professor Sue Doran, Jesus College, University of Oxford and Professor Steven Gunn, Merton College, University of Oxford discuss the role foreign relations played in Tudor royal authority and the amount of power Tudor monarchs were able to exercise. The film will explore common threads and differences in foreign policy...
Film: Foreign Relations and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
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The Battle of Monte Cassino and the D-Day Landings
Article
The Second World War is no longer a recent war. Very soon, there will be no veterans left to tell us how they saw things and what it was really like for them. While some eyewitnesses who were children at the time might be with us to see the centenary...
The Battle of Monte Cassino and the D-Day Landings
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Lecture: Gender, place and power in controverted 18th century elections
HA Annual Conference lecture 2019
Lecture: Gender, place and power in controverted 18th century elections
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National distinctions entirely laid aside?
Historian article
Bethan M. Jenkins considers why it was important to Lewis Morris and others to have the distinctive Welsh contribution to British history and culture properly acknowledged.
National distinctions entirely laid aside?
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The British soldier in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
Historian article
Scum of the earth – or fine fellows?
Carole Divall asks whether the men of the British Army really were ‘the scum of the earth’, as often asserted, or willing soldiers who earned the respect of the French.
‘Soldiers were regarded as day labourers engaged in unsavoury business; a money...
The British soldier in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars
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English first-aid organisations and the Provisional IRA mainland bombing campaign of 1974
Historian article
Barry Doyle reveals how the devastating Provisional IRA bombing of two Birmingham public houses in 1974 led to a resurgence in first-aid training and preparation, on the scale with which we are familiar today.
English first-aid organisations and the Provisional IRA mainland bombing campaign of 1974
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Parliament, people or privilege: Do we need a better understanding of constitutional history?
Historical Association conference 2017: round table discussion
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...
Parliament, people or privilege: Do we need a better understanding of constitutional history?
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Recorded webinar: The Crusades through Middle Eastern eyes: Islamic and Eastern Christian perspectives
Article
The Crusades were traditionally studied as an extension of western European history. In recent decades, however, historians have begun to study the Crusades from the perspective of Middle Eastern history, through sources left behind by local Muslims as well as Eastern Christians. This presentation will discuss this shift in the...
Recorded webinar: The Crusades through Middle Eastern eyes: Islamic and Eastern Christian perspectives
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Recorded webinar: Deafness in early modern England
Article
In this webinar, Professor Rosamund Oates shares her research for her new book Silent Histories: Deafness in Early Modern England (2026). Professor Oates is an expert in the historical cultures of early modern England and is passionate about exploring previously unknown stories of deaf and disabled people, using rigorous scholarly...
Recorded webinar: Deafness in early modern England
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Recorded webinar: Tsarist imperial society and ethnicity
Article
In this webinar historian Shane O’Rourke – a specialist in late-Imperial Russian society and ethnicities, including the Cossacks – explores society under the last three Tsars, examining Russification in the western Russian borderlands, Russian settler colonialism, the Caucasus and deportation, and current historiographical trends.
Recorded webinar: Tsarist imperial society and ethnicity
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Virtual Branch recording: The Maginot Line
Article
Why did the the Maginot Line – that marvel of 1930s engineering with its miles of fortifications and bunkers to deter German invasion – fail so spectacularly in 1940?
Its vast underground forts were designed to withstand artillery and chemical attack, yet France fell in just six weeks, leaving the Line as a symbol...
Virtual Branch recording: The Maginot Line
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Filmed lecture: How (not) to historicise the contemporary United States
HA Conference 2026 keynote lecture
For the last two and a half centuries, the USA has been shaped by a remarkable sense of its own unique place in world history, yet consumed by never-ending battles over what this means. 250 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the United States appears to be at...
Filmed lecture: How (not) to historicise the contemporary United States
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The Aftermath of War: Allied Occupation and Displaced Persons in post-war Europe
Article
Dr Samantha K. Knapton [she/her] is an Assistant Professor in History at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is an historian of central and east-central Europe, forced displacement, and international humanitarianism. In 2023, she has published her first monograph, Occupiers, Humanitarian Workers, and Polish Displaced Persons in British-occupied Germany and a co-edited...
The Aftermath of War: Allied Occupation and Displaced Persons in post-war Europe
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To see the witch: understanding the European witch craze through visual art
Historian article
During the European witch craze, visual art played a powerful role in shaping belief in witches. The printing press allowed images of witchcraft to circulate widely, amplifying fear and suspicion. In this article, Natasha Brockman explores how such imagery did more than illustrate witchcraft: it helped create it, teaching people what witches...
To see the witch: understanding the European witch craze through visual art
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The Lady and the Unicorn
Historian article
As well as being admired for their aesthetic beauty, medieval and early modern tapestries often conveyed deeper symbolic meanings. Here Damien Dessane examines a famous sixteenth century tapestry and reveals the insights it provides into Anglo-French relations in that period and into the increasing agency of some important women...
The Lady and the Unicorn
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Hiding in plain sight: an eighteenth-century portrait of an Inca leader
Historian article
In this article, Emily C. Floyd explores a rare eighteenth-century self-commissioned engraved portrait of an elite Indigenous man in colonial Lima. By comparing this unassuming image with a more overtly Inca portrait, the article reveals how Indigenous leaders navigated identity, loyalty, and colonial restrictions, using portraiture to assert agency in...
Hiding in plain sight: an eighteenth-century portrait of an Inca leader
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Losing sight of the bigger picture: public policy and the visual arts
Historian article
From the 1940s to the late twentieth century, the visual arts in England were promoted and encouraged in a variety of ways by politicians and other policymakers, at both national and local level. Recent decades have seen a marginalisation of the arts, particularly in education. In this article Pauline Wood...
Losing sight of the bigger picture: public policy and the visual arts
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‘My sweet San Gimignano’: a Tuscan commune in the Middle Ages
Historian article
The northern Italian town of San Gimignano is famous for its high-rise medieval towers. The size of these fortified buildings might lead to the assumption that the town was a place of constant conflict and discord. Here John Law uses a wide variety of evidence to argue that San Gimignano...
‘My sweet San Gimignano’: a Tuscan commune in the Middle Ages
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Vikings in the East: from Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin
Historian article
Martyn Whittock explores the lesser-known world of the Vikings who travelled east, forging the early state of Kyivan Rus and leaving a legacy still debated in Russia and Ukraine today. From silver routes and sagas to modern political claims, this article explores how their story and origins remain as dramatic...
Vikings in the East: from Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin
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Out and About: Leavesden Country Park
Historian feature
Concerns about demobilised soldiers after the Second World War were widespread, reflecting both the practical challenges faced by returning servicemen and broader anxieties about their reintegration into civilian life. In this article, Helen George explores how a temporary education facility in Hertfordshire helped prepare demobilised Canadian soldiers for higher education...
Out and About: Leavesden Country Park
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Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
Historian feature
In this article, Rob Pritchard reflects on his long-standing engagement with the Black Country Living Museum, exploring how visits to this ‘living history’ site transformed his approach to teaching history...
Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
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Real Lives: Eduard Friedrich Kärger
Historian feature
In this article, Alex van der Ham and Ling-Hua Huang explain how a casual browse through a nineteenth century journal led to an intriguing research journey into the author of a scientific dissertation. Here they discovered interesting insights into Prussian society in the years leading to the Unification of Germany,...
Real Lives: Eduard Friedrich Kärger
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In conversation with Henrike Lähnemann
Historian feature
In The Life of Nuns: love, politics, and religion in medieval German convents (Open Book Publishers, 2024), Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber explore female religious communities from the late medieval and early Reformation-era in northern Germany, revealing them to be vibrant centres of learning, administration, devotion, friendship, and negotiation. The book challenges...
In conversation with Henrike Lähnemann
