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  • Living on the Silk Roads: Voices from Dunhuang

      Historian article
    In Autumn 2024, the British Library will mount an exhibition exploring the stories of the people who inhabited or passed through the oasis town of Dunhuang during the first millennium. Located in modern-day Gansu province, in northwest China, Dunhuang was originally established as a garrison town and became an important commercial...
    Living on the Silk Roads: Voices from Dunhuang

  • 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

  • Film: Stalin - World War II

      Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
    In this film, Professor James Harris (University of Leeds) examines Stalin and the Soviet preparations for global war. The reasons why Stalin agreed the Nazi-Soviet pact are explored as are Stalin’s response to invasion in 1941. Professor Harris addresses the impact the war had on the USSR and how that...
    Film: Stalin - World War II

  • Film: Stalin & the Great Terror

      Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
    Why was the Soviet Union so violent in the 1930s? In this film, Professor James Harris (University of Leeds) looks at differing interpretations of the origins of the Great Terror; was it the story of one man trying to obtain total control, was it a result of collective frustration against...
    Film: Stalin & the Great Terror

  • Film: Stalin - The Early Soviet Economy & the preparation for war

      Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
    In this film, Professor James Harris (University of Leeds) examines how the New Economic Policy transformed the Soviet economy after the civil war, and looks at Stalin’s central role in that recovery. Key during that period was Stalin’s dispute with Nikolai Bukharin and the Great Break, and the drive to...
    Film: Stalin - The Early Soviet Economy & the preparation for war

  • Film: Stalin - Rise to Power

      Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
    In this film, Professor James Harris (University of Leeds) discusses how interpretations have changed over the years regarding Stalin’s rise to power, and his transformation from rural Georgian to the ‘Man of Steel’ – Stalin. For many years, western interpretations were strongly influenced by his rival Trotsky, who defined Stalin...
    Film: Stalin - Rise to Power

  • Political and social attitudes underpinning the 1924 Olympics

      Historian article
    The 1924 Olympics in Paris are best known to many British people through the ‘Chariots of Fire’ film from the early 1980s. The film touches on some of the political and social attitudes prevalent in the 1920s and Steve Illingworth explores these issues further in this article. It is argued...
    Political and social attitudes underpinning the 1924 Olympics

  • The circle of Ulster literary male friendships of author Forrest Reid

      Historian article
    Eminent Ulster novelist Forrest Reid was a complex character, reflecting a variety of attitudes in both his writing and his private life. In this article Michael Kelly examines how Reid and his circle of friends aimed to navigate their way through the changes of the early twentieth century, in both...
    The circle of Ulster literary male friendships of author Forrest Reid

  • Film: Stalin - Early Life

      Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
    Joseph Stalin was born Joseph Besarionis dze Jughashvili in 1878 into a poor family in Gori, Georgia, part of the then Russian Empire. Stalin attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary while his own radicalism grew, before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, Pravda, and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction through...
    Film: Stalin - Early Life

  • Britain and the First World War: not just battles

      Historian feature
    When the First World War started in the summer of 1914 it began a series of events that would change the world for ever; it also accelerated changes and ideas that were already underway. In some cases, big issues appeared to be put to one side while the immediate needs of...
    Britain and the First World War: not just battles

  • Why White Liberals Fail: United States politics in an election year

      Historian feature
    Paula Kitching interview with Professor Anthony J. Badger about his latest book. 2024 is an election year in the United States. For many in the UK and around the world the US political system can be confusing, with simple processes seemingly more complex than you would expect. It is not just the system...
    Why White Liberals Fail: United States politics in an election year

  • ‘A little bird told me’: spies and espionage in the early medieval world

      Historian article
    Spies were a common feature of political, diplomatic and courtly life in the period of early medieval Europe. In this article, Jenny Benham explores some interesting contemporary representations of spies, in both literature and art. These stories and images reveal key features of the culture and practices surrounding these so-called...
    ‘A little bird told me’: spies and espionage in the early medieval world

  • Crowdsourcing the heritage of the Second World War

      Historian article
    Stuart Lee, Ylva Berglund Prytz and Matthew Kidd introduce an innovative project to capture objects and the memories they hold.
    Crowdsourcing the heritage of the Second World War

  • Bonapartism after Napoleon III: the Prince Imperial and Eugene Loudun

      Historian article
    Emperor Napoleon III of France was deposed in 1870 and then died three years later. His son, known as the Prince Imperial, lived in exile in south-east England. There he and his supporters kept alive ambitions for a triumphant return of the Empire. In this article, Ian Sygrave assesses the...
    Bonapartism after Napoleon III: the Prince Imperial and Eugene Loudun

  • In conversation with Nicholas Radburn

      Historian article
    The Historian sat down with historian Nicholas Radburn to discuss his latest book, Traders in Men, which examines the role of merchants in the expansion and transformation of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the eighteenth century.
    In conversation with Nicholas Radburn

  • What do you do if your members don’t come to your events?

      Historian article
    Branch President, Sean Lang, explains how a radical departure from the traditional branch lecture programme is helping to revitalise the HA in Cambridge.
    What do you do if your members don’t come to your events?

  • Forbidden friendships: taverns, nightclubs, bottle bars and emancipation

      Historian article
    The modern gay-rights movement has its origins in a 1960s New York ‘bottle bar’, but as Ben Jerrit explains, drinking establishments have been centres of gay culture and social resistance for centuries. 
    Forbidden friendships: taverns, nightclubs, bottle bars and emancipation

  • The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

      Historian article
    The Nazis came to power in 1933 with an openly racist and antisemitic set of policies. In the years leading up to the start of the Second World War, those policies were carried out through legislation and governmental actions, with the support of many members of German society. Once the war started,...
    The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

  • Virtual Branch recording: Empires of the Normans

      Virtual Branch Film
    How did descendants of Viking marauders come to dominate Western Europe and the Mediterranean, from the British Isles to North Africa, and Lisbon to the Holy Land and the Middle East? In this Virtual Branch talk Levi Roach, author of Empires of the Normans, tells a tale of ambitious adventures...
    Virtual Branch recording: Empires of the Normans

  • ‘Since singing is so good a thing’: William Byrd on the benefits of singing

      Historian article
    As the value of music education is again a topic of societal debate, Tudor composer William Byrd, the four hundredth anniversary of whose death is celebrated this year, was a powerful advocate of singing in early modern England, writes Katherine Butler. Tudor composer William Byrd (c.1540–1623) is recognised today not only...
    ‘Since singing is so good a thing’: William Byrd on the benefits of singing

  • A land without music?

      Historian article
    It is sometimes said that England was a ‘land without music’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – not so, according to David Fleming. ‘Between the age of Purcell and that of Elgar and Parry, we had to do without much musical life in our country.’ Or so wrote Simon...
    A land without music?

  • Arctic aspirations: Britain and Icelandic independence, 1917–18

      Historian article
    As it sought independence, Iceland gained a new significance for Britain during the latter stages of the First World War, writes Ben Markham.  At the turn of the twentieth century, Iceland was not an independent country. Isolated in the North Atlantic Ocean, it was nonetheless considered an integral part of...
    Arctic aspirations: Britain and Icelandic independence, 1917–18

  • Hearing the call to arms: Herbert Douglas Fisher

      Historian article
    The intellectual aristocracy of late Victorian and early Edwardian Britain constitutes a Venn diagram of familiar names – the Stracheys and the Stephens, the Wedgwoods and the Darwins, the Keynes and the Trevelyans. These affluent, upper middle-class pillars of public life espoused a secular, liberal view of the world. Their depth...
    Hearing the call to arms: Herbert Douglas Fisher

  • Crusade in Crisis: the Siege and Battle of Antioch, 1097–98

      Historian article
    On 28 June 1098, the forces of the First Crusade marched out from the great north Syrian city of Antioch to do battle with Karbugha, the Muslim ruler of Mosul. The odds were not in their favour: not only was the Muslim army vastly superior in size, but the crusaders had...
    Crusade in Crisis: the Siege and Battle of Antioch, 1097–98

  • Virtual Branch recording: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom

      The Black Crown
    How did a man born enslaved on a plantation triumph over Napoleon's invading troops and become king of the first free black nation in the Americas? This is the forgotten, remarkable story of Henry Christophe. Christophe fought as a child soldier in the American War of Independence, before serving in...
    Virtual Branch recording: Henry Christophe, the Haitian Revolution and the Caribbean's Forgotten Kingdom