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Sparta and war: myths and realities
Historian article
Stephen Hodkinson explains how images of ancient Sparta have been distorted and misused.
On 15 April 2017, at a violent right-wing rally in Berkeley, California, some striking ancient Greek symbols were visible amidst the swastikas and ‘Make America Great Again’ hats. Several demonstrators wore replica ‘Corinthian’ helmets, as worn by...
Sparta and war: myths and realities
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Gaming the medieval past
Historian article
Matthew Bennett and Ryan Lavelle explore how the devising, playing and discussion of war games can contribute to historical understanding.
Games as tools for learning are engaging for teachers and students alike. Whether computer-driven, board games, miniatures, role-play or re-enactment, they all provide scenarios within which learners can use a...
Gaming the medieval past
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Real Lives: Flora Sandes
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...
Real Lives: Flora Sandes
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History Abridged: Operation Black Buck
Historian feature
History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. See all History Abridged articles
Just as the Naval Task Force had been dispatched in April 1982, days after the...
History Abridged: Operation Black Buck
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My Favourite History Place: Maiden Castle
Historian feature
In the six years I have been on the editorial board of The Historian I have enjoyed reading about many historians’ favourite places so it is fitting that I write my last contribution about mine. Maiden Castle is the largest Celtic hill fort in southern Europe. I forget when I first...
My Favourite History Place: Maiden Castle
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Out and About in Upper Weardale
Historian feature
Tony Fox introduces us to two battlefields and the work of the Battlefields Trust.
Stanhope takes its name from the ‘stony valley’ in which it sits. It is the most significant town in beautiful Upper Weardale. Like many towns in this area Stanhope’s growth accelerated in the nineteenth century as...
Out and About in Upper Weardale
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The Historian 144: War
The magazine of the Historical Association
4 Reviews
5 Editorial (Read article)
6 The last battle: Bomber Command’s veterans and the fight for remembrance – Frances Houghton (Read article)
11 British-Army camp followers in the Peninsular War – Charles J. Esdaile (Read article)
16 Sparta and war: myths and realities – Stephen Hodkinson (Read article)
22 Losing sight of the...
The Historian 144: War
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Protestantism and art in early modern England
Article
“I am greatly honoured to receive the Medlicott medal and I thank the President for his much-too-kind remarks. It is fifty years since I attended my first meeting of the Historical Association and heard a lecture by Professor Medlicott himself, no less. The Association does a wonderful job in encouraging...
Protestantism and art in early modern England
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Women in Late Medieval Bristol
Classic Pamphlet
During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Bristol was one of England's greatest towns, with a population of perhaps 100,000 after the Black Death of 1348. Its status was recognised in 1373, with its creation as the realm's first provincial urban county, but only in 1542, with the creation of the...
Women in Late Medieval Bristol
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Unravelling the complexity of the causes of British abolition with Year 8
Teaching History article
Elizabeth Marsay wanted to ensure that her students were not hindered in their causal explanations of the abolition of slavery by being exposed to overly categorical, simplistic, and monocausal narratives in the classroom. By drawing on both English and Canadian theorisation about causation, Marsay outlines how her introduction of competing...
Unravelling the complexity of the causes of British abolition with Year 8
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Cunning Plan 178: How far did Anglo-Saxon England survive the Norman Conquest?
Teaching History feature
Cunning Plan for using the metaphor of a tree to help students characterise the process of change and engage with a historian’s argument.
In this Cunning Plan, Eve Hackett sets out how she used a recent work of history about the Norman Conquest as inspiration for her teaching of Year...
Cunning Plan 178: How far did Anglo-Saxon England survive the Norman Conquest?
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What’s in a narrative? Unpicking Year 9 narratives of change in Stalin’s Russia
Teaching History article
Is it structure or the selection of knowledge that makes writing historical narrative so difficult? Where does a conceptual focus on change, or causation, come in? James Ellis set out to explore the challenges his Year 9 pupils faced in writing historical narratives about change. Inspired by the work of...
What’s in a narrative? Unpicking Year 9 narratives of change in Stalin’s Russia
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What have historians been arguing about... decolonisation and the British Empire?
Teaching History feature
Decolonisation is a contested term. When first used in 1952, it referred to a political event: a colony gaining independence; it has since come to describe a process. When, where and why this process began, however, and whether it has ended, are all fiercely debated. Is it about new flags...
What have historians been arguing about... decolonisation and the British Empire?
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Family stories and global (hi)stories
Teaching History article
Teaching in Greece, a country with extensive recent experience of immigration, Maria Vlachaki and Georgia Kouseri were interested to examine how they might use family history as a means of exploring the historical dimensions of this potentially sensitive topic. They hoped that encouraging pupils to explore their relatives’ stories would...
Family stories and global (hi)stories
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Move Me On 178: trainee sees all observation as assessment
The problem page for history mentors
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On 178: trainee sees all observation as assessment
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Teaching History 178: Constructing Accounts
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial (Read article)
03 HA Secondary News
04 HA Update
08 Beneath the surface: unravelling the complexity of the causes of British abolition with Year 8 – Elizabeth Marsay (Read article)
16 What’s The Wisdom On... enquiry questions? (Read article)
20 Training for the marathon: history at Michaela – Michael...
Teaching History 178: Constructing Accounts
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Move Me On 133: Relying too much on teacher talk and alienating students
Teaching History feature
This Issue's problem: Margaret Cooper has struggled hard to realise her ambition to train to be a teacher but, now that she is taking responsibility for whole-class teaching, she is finding that her assumptions are being challenged and she is losing confidence...
Move Me On 133: Relying too much on teacher talk and alienating students
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Teaching History 133: Simulating History
The HA's journal for secondary history teachers
02 Editorial
03 HA Secondary News
04 Stories and their sources: the need for historical thinking in an information age – Ben Walsh (Read article)
10 How to make historical simulations adaptable, engaging and manageable – Dan Moorhouse (Read article)
17 Nutshell
18 ‘If everyone’s got to vote then, obviously…...
Teaching History 133: Simulating History
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Adam Smith
Classic Pamphlet
Adam Smith 1723-1790
Adam Smith was so pre-eminently one of the master minds of the eighteenth century and so obviously one of the dominating influences of the nineteenth, in his own country and in the world at large, that is somewhat surprising that we are so ill-informed regarding the details...
Adam Smith
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The Evidence of the Casket Letters
Classic Pamphlet
It has been well said that the last word will never be written on the tragedy of Mary Stuart, for her fate presents problems which invite solution from the historians of successive generations, and yet can never be wholly solved, If the charge brought against the Queen of complicity in...
The Evidence of the Casket Letters
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Using stories to support history in the EYFS
Primary History article
Stories can be used as starting points for planning topics. Activities suggested below relate to ‘Understanding the world’ including Early Learning Goal 13 – People and communities:
Children talk about past and present events in their own lives and in the lives of family members.
They know about similarities and...
Using stories to support history in the EYFS
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Knowledge-rich approaches to history
Primary History article
In recent years, there has been growing support from policy makers in England for knowledge-rich curricula which view subjects like history as having cultural capital that all pupils should have access to regardless of background. The work of E.D. Hirsch has been particularly influential in arguing that a lack of...
Knowledge-rich approaches to history
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Insights from a year of leading the development of a ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’
Primary History article
Raynville Primary School serves a highly disadvantaged area of West Leeds and we work hard to provide our children with the best opportunities to learn and enjoy their time with us. One jewel in the crown of our school’s curriculum is children’s historical learning as part of a knowledge-rich curriculum....
Insights from a year of leading the development of a ‘knowledge-rich curriculum’
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Teaching about the Kindertransport without the Kinder
Primary History article
The Kindertransport, literally ‘children’s transport’, was the rescue operation of almost 10,000 unaccompanied Jewish child refugees to Britain between December 1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939.
Many of the Kinder (children) regularly share their experiences in primary schools, where their visit is regarded as...
Teaching about the Kindertransport without the Kinder
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Extending the curriculum: why should we consider ‘value added’?
Primary History article
While the focus provided by the new Ofsted framework has allowed schools to begin to, perhaps, rebalance the curriculum, the time allocated to the foundation subjects is still fairly marginal in many schools. This means that hard decisions have to be taken about what to include and what to leave...
Extending the curriculum: why should we consider ‘value added’?
