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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... migration and empire
A Polychronicon of the past
In autumn 2019, Kara Walker’s monumental sculpture, Fons Americanus, went on display in the Tate Modern, offering a poignant, troubling challenge to national commemoration. Walker depicts not the lingering vestiges of imperial glory, but sharks, tears, and haunted memories. She brings history into conversation with its contemporary legacies and engages...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... migration and empire
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Russian Revolution: Social Movements between the Revolutions Feb-Oct 1917
Lecture
On the 29th November Dr Jane McDermid gave the second of her lectures on the Russian Revolution, at the Weston Theatre, Manchester. John Laver, Principal Examiner in History at AQA also gave some invaluable advice on how to answer A Level History Exam questions.
Click the links below to access their lecture notes>>>...
Russian Revolution: Social Movements between the Revolutions Feb-Oct 1917
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Lord North: The Noble Lord in the Blue Ribbon
Classic Pamphlet
In the last weeks of his life Lord North, we are told, expressed anxiety about his place in history - ‘how he stood and would stand in the world'. This, he owned, ‘might be a weakness, but he could not help it'. It was a weakness one suspects that he...
Lord North: The Noble Lord in the Blue Ribbon
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Was Richard II Mad? An evening with Terry Jones
Event Podcast
On 19th June Terry Jones, 'Python', historian, broadcaster, actor, director and comedian called King Richard II a victim of spin at the annual Historical Association/English Association lecture at the Bishopsgate Institute. Here he sets out to rescue his reputation and lift the lid on the turbulent world of 14th century...
Was Richard II Mad? An evening with Terry Jones
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William the Silent and the Revolt of the Netherlands
Classic Pamphlet
The Revolt of the Netherlands was the most successful of all uprisings in early modern Europe and had far reaching effects on the course of Dutch and European history. In accounting for its outcome recent research has emphasized the significance of impersonal forces of political, economic or religious nature rather...
William the Silent and the Revolt of the Netherlands
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Private Lives of the Tudors
Historian article
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...
Private Lives of the Tudors
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The Scottish Enlightenment
Classic Pamphlet
In recent decades, Scotland's distinctive contribution to the Enlightenment has been of increasing interest to scholars. Often very remarkable in an analytical view, such studies may nevertheless miss their sense of the story by treating Scottish insight in abstraction from Scottish life. Taking a more concrete approach, the present study...
The Scottish Enlightenment
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Virtual Branch Recording: The First King of England
Article
Æthelstan was the early medieval king whose territorial conquests and shrewd statesmanship united the peoples, languages, and cultures that would come to be known as the 'Kingdom of the English.' In this panoramic talk, David Woodman draws on his research and recent book to create a portrait of this immensely...
Virtual Branch Recording: The First King of England
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The Somme: a last innings for Yorkshire and England
Historian article
Ronan Thomas explores a tragic sporting outcome of the Battle of the Somme.
At the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, the losses suffered by the British Army still have the power to shock. On 1 July 1916 alone nearly 60,000 men became casualties, of whom almost 20,000 were...
The Somme: a last innings for Yorkshire and England
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Nineteenth Century African chiefs in Nuneaton: A local mystery uncovered
Article
In Nuneaton’s St. Nicolas Churchyard lies a sizeable, though not elaborate, flat gravestone. It commemorates Canon Robert Savage, Vicar of the parish 1845-71, his wife Emma and many of their children. This tombstone, like so many in our graveyards, reveals a wide range of historical information, recording significant detail about...
Nineteenth Century African chiefs in Nuneaton: A local mystery uncovered
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Late Medieval Taxation Records
Historian article
There are more than 23,000 medieval taxation records from England and Wales in the Public Record Office alone. For many years the vast majority of them have lain undisturbed in their archive boxes, but recent work is showing the true value of some of these as historical sources and making...
Late Medieval Taxation Records
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Battle of the Somme: the making of the 1916 propaganda film
Historian article
The versions of history on our cinema screens have an important influence upon public perceptions of the past. In his article Taylor Downing explores how the wartime British government used the cinema for propaganda purposes and how the film Battle of the Somme contributes to portrayals of that battle to this...
Battle of the Somme: the making of the 1916 propaganda film
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Penruddock's Rising 1655
Classic Pamphlet
Three hundred years ago John Penruddock of Compton Chamberlayne and a dozen other brave men paid with their lives for their failure to raise the West Country in the name of King Charles II against the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. They had been in arms barely four days, and their...
Penruddock's Rising 1655
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Virtual Branch Recording: Crusader Criminals
Article
The religious wars of the Crusades are renowned for their military engagements. But the period was witness to brutality beyond the battlefield. More so than any other medieval war zone, the Holy Land was rife with unprecedented levels of criminality and violence.
In the first history of its kind, Steve Tibble explores...
Virtual Branch Recording: Crusader Criminals
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Film: Khrushchev - Downfall and Legacy
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
In this film, Dr Alexander Titov (Queen's University of Belfast), discusses how Khruschev went from initially being a highly popular ‘man of the people’, to becoming an authoritarian, who alienated his colleagues through rudeness and constant unexplained policy shifts, and whose predilection for risk taking and gambles brought the world perilously...
Film: Khrushchev - Downfall and Legacy
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Digging the dirt on ‘The Dig’
Historian article
Laura Howarth, Archaeology and Engagement Manager at the National Trust property of Sutton Hoo, reflects on the discovery of the ship burial in 1939 and its portrayal in the 2021 film, The Dig.
In a corner of Suffolk during the summer of 1939, an archaeological discovery was made at Sutton...
Digging the dirt on ‘The Dig’
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Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury (602–690)
Historian article
The remarkable career of Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, shows how the political and religious turmoil in the seventh-century eastern Mediterranean had a direct impact upon the English kingdoms.
Asked to name the most significant archbishops of Canterbury, it is likely that few would name the seventh-century monk, Theodore of...
Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury (602–690)
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Taking tea with Frau von Papen
Historian article
The Weimar Republic in its last days as seen and remembered by a five-year-old English boy. A long-standing member of the Historical Association remembers an experience from eighty years ago.
As Mrs Merkel is well aware, the fear of inflation is deeply embedded in the German folk memory. Eighty years...
Taking tea with Frau von Papen
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Joan Vaux: a remarkable Tudor lady
Historian article
Joanna Hickson is a hugely successful novelist, specialising in historical fiction, and she describes herself as feeling that she actually lives in the fifteenth century. For readers of The Historian she explores and explains how she developed her understanding and knowledge of a highly significant Tudor woman who is a central figure in two of...
Joan Vaux: a remarkable Tudor lady
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Film: Berengaria of Navarre
History & Myth
In this talk Dr Gabrielle Storey discusses the life and times of Berengaria of Navarre, queen of England, lord of Le Mans, and wife of Richard I.
Berengaria of Navarre has been inaccurately labelled as the only queen never to have stepped foot in England. This talk will present new analysis...
Film: Berengaria of Navarre
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Virtual Branch recording: The Women's World Committee against War & Fascism
Connected and Competing Activisms
How did a group of women activists with varied ideological backgrounds construct several important campaigns against fascism in the interwar period? How did this Women's World Committee against War and Fascism (Comité Mondial des Femmes contre la Guerre et le Fascisme) undertake effective humanitarian and propaganda work and forge extensive...
Virtual Branch recording: The Women's World Committee against War & Fascism
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J.L. Petit: Britain’s Lost Pre-Impressionist
Book review
J.L. Petit: Britain’s Lost Pre-Impressionist, Philip Modiano, RPS Publications, 122p. 2022, £20. ISBN 978-1-9164931-2-4.
Philip Modiano’s championing of prolific Victorian water-colourist and pioneering campaigner for the preservation of ancient buildings, Reverend John Louis Petit [1801-1868], continues to raise the profile of this neglected Staffordshire artist. His new book follows on...
J.L. Petit: Britain’s Lost Pre-Impressionist
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Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
Historian article
Daniel Goldhagen defines anti-semitism as ‘negative beliefs and emotions about Jews qua Jews.' Nazis believed Jews to be the source of Germany's misfortunes, and that they must be denied German citizenship and removed from German society. Hitler never compromised on the need to settle what he regarded as the Jewish...
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust
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Out and About on Uzbekistan’s Silk Road
Historian feature
“For lust of knowing what should not be known— We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.”
So wrote poet James Elroy Flecker in 1913, who had perhaps an unduly romantic view of what motivated many of Uzbekistan’s earlier visitors. A more realistic explanation was proffered in the thirteenth century by the Persian...
Out and About on Uzbekistan’s Silk Road
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The rise and fall of Nauru
Historian article
Aadam Patel offers an insight into the complexities of the recent economic history of a remote Pacific island.
Nauru is an isolated island located in the Pacific Ocean approximately 4,400km north-east from Australia and 1,300km north-east from the Solomon Islands. With an area of just below 21 squared kilometres, it is...
The rise and fall of Nauru
