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Polychronicon 157: Reinterpreting police-public relations in modern England
Teaching History feature
The relationship between the police and the public has long been a key subject in English social history. The formative work in this field was conducted between the 1970s and 1990s, but the past few years have witnessed something of a revival of research in the area. By focusing on...
Polychronicon 157: Reinterpreting police-public relations in modern England
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Triumphs Show 176: Using material culture as a means to generate an enquiry on the British Empire
Teaching History feature
Triumphs Show is a regular feature which offers a quick way for teachers to celebrate their successes and share inspirational ideas with one another. While the ideas are always explained in sufficient depth for others to be able to take them forward in their own practice, the simple format allows...
Triumphs Show 176: Using material culture as a means to generate an enquiry on the British Empire
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Revisiting chronological knowledge from before 1066
Article
Thinking about...the study of an aspect or theme in British history that revisits or extends pupils' chronological knowledge from before 1066Alf Wilkinson presents a personal exploration of how we might use this Key Stage 3 unit to help our students develop a coherent understanding of history.
Revisiting chronological knowledge from before 1066
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The Medieval Empire
Classic Pamphlet
The subject of this pamphlet is one that, by general consent, takes a central place in European history in the middle ages. The history of the Empire, it has often been said, is co-terminous with the history of western Christendom; and Lord Bryce long ago described it as a ‘universal...
The Medieval Empire
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War, Society and the State in Early Modern Europe
Podcast
Lecture from the 2012 HA Annual Conference
Frank Tallett: Fellow in History at the University of Reading and former Head of its School of Humanities
Until recently, military history has largely been concerned with ‘badges and buttons', an approach that stressed tactics, strategy and weapons. The so-called New Military History has sought...
War, Society and the State in Early Modern Europe
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Inventing race? Using primary sources to investigate the origins of racial thinking in the past
Teaching History article
Having been given some additional curriculum time, Kerry Apps and her department made decisions about what had been missing in the previous curriculum diet. Building on an existing enquiry (in TH 176), Apps decided to focus on how and when the idea of race in its modern sense developed in early modern...
Inventing race? Using primary sources to investigate the origins of racial thinking in the past
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Podcast lecture: Mad or Bad? Was Henry VI a tyrant?
Presidential Lecture 2011
Professor Anne Curry delivered her final Presidential lecture at the Historical Association Annual Conference 2011 in Manchester.
Henry VI (1422-61) was England's youngest king, only nine months old when he succeeded his famous father. Traditionally he is seen as incompetent, pious and, latterly, insane, and thereby causing the Wars of...
Podcast lecture: Mad or Bad? Was Henry VI a tyrant?
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Polychronicon 160: Interpreting 'The Birth of a Nation'
Teaching History feature
Controversial from the first year of its release in 1915, 'The Birth of a Nation' has been hailed as both the greatest film ever made and the most racist. On 8 February 1915, it premiered in Los Angeles as 'The Clansman', the name of the novel and play upon which...
Polychronicon 160: Interpreting 'The Birth of a Nation'
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... Royal Studies
Teaching History feature
‘Royal Studies’ is much more than the study of kings and queens as individuals. It draws in their families, the institution of monarchy and monarchical government, court studies, relationships with the church, artistic and literary patronage, and more. While history ‘from below’ and studies of non-elite figures have enriched the...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... Royal Studies
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Developing transferable knowledge at A-level
Teaching History article
From a compartmentalised to a complicated past: developing transferable knowledge at A-level
Students find it difficult to join up the different things they study into a complex account of the past. Examination specifications do not necessarily help with this because of the way in which history is divided up into...
Developing transferable knowledge at A-level
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Lecture recording: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution
A Fistful of Shells
In this Virtual Branch webinar we were joined in conversation with Dr Toby Green on his acclaimed book 'A Fistful of Shells'. Shortlisted for the 2020 Wolfson Prize and winner of the 2019 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, the book explores West Africa from the Rise of the...
Lecture recording: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... youth culture?
Teaching History feature
For such a boldly iconoclastic work, the Key Stage 3 textbook A New Focus on ... British Social History, c.1920–2000 (2023) provides a disarmingly conventional account of youth in the 1960s as ‘mostly better educated and informed than their parents had been at their age [and able] … to find...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... youth culture?
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Learning from the Aftermath of the Holocaust
Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 14, Number 2 – Spring/Summer 2017
ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
In this article I seek to encourage those involved in Holocaust education in schools to engage not just with the Holocaust but also with its aftermath. I conceptualise the latter in terms of two...
Learning from the Aftermath of the Holocaust
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Recorded webinar: Queer beyond London
Article
London has tended to dominate accounts of LGBTQ Britain… but how did local contexts beyond the capital affect queer identities and communities? This talk by Professor Matt Cook looks at Brighton, Plymouth, Manchester and Leeds to illustrate the difference locality makes to queer lives.
* Please note: while this webinar...
Recorded webinar: Queer beyond London
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How visual evidence reflects change and continuity in attitudes to the police in the 19th and early 20th centuries
Teaching History article
While history teachers (and examiners) regularly invite students to consider what cartoons or paintings reveal about contemporary attitudes to particular social or political developments, such sources are often difficult to interpret and to use appropriately. Drawing on a wealth of detailed research and a passion to support teachers and students with...
How visual evidence reflects change and continuity in attitudes to the police in the 19th and early 20th centuries
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The Victorian Age
Classic Pamphlet
This Classic Pamphlet was published in 1937 (the centenary of the accession of Queen Victoria, who succeeded to the throne on June 20, 1837).
Synopsis of contents:
1. Is the Victorian Age a distinct 'period' of history?
Landmarks establishing its beginning: the Reform Bill, railways, other inventions, new leaders in...
The Victorian Age
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Bringing Rwanda into the classroom
Teaching History article
A short 20 years: meeting the challenges facing teachers who bring Rwanda into the classroom
As the twentieth anniversary of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda approaches, Mark Gudgel argues that we should face the challenges posed by teaching about Rwanda. Drawing on his experience as a history teacher in the...
Bringing Rwanda into the classroom
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Polychronicon 173: From American Indians to Native Americans
Teaching History journal feature
Few sub-fields of American history have undergone as many changes over time as the study of Native Americans/American Indians. While nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians portrayed Native Americans as savage barbarians or ignored them entirely, late twentieth-century historians portrayed them as victims of circumstance and aggressive European conquest. Today, modern...
Polychronicon 173: From American Indians to Native Americans
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Using databases to explore the real depth in the data
Teaching History article
Is it a good thing to have a lot of evidence? Surely the historian would answer that yes, it is: the more evidence that can be used, the better. The problem with this approach, though, is that too much data can be overwhelming for the history student - and, in...
Using databases to explore the real depth in the data
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'Veni, Vidi, Vici!'
Historian article
A personal reflection on Julius Caesar and the conquest of Britain
Julius Caesar always brings to mind the famous dictum of Winston Churchill, ‘History will be kind to me, for I shall write it!' In his writings Julius Caesar provides a vivid and detailed account of his invasions of Britain in...
'Veni, Vidi, Vici!'
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Unpicking the threads of interpretations
Teaching History article
Determined to do justice to the complexity of the seventeenth century, as a messy but crucial period in British history, and to develop their pupils’ disciplinary understanding of how and why interpretations of the past are constructed, Dan Keates and his department set out to exploit the rich seam of...
Unpicking the threads of interpretations
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Three lessons about a funeral: Second World War cemeteries and twenty years of curriculum change
Article
Mike Murray analyses the way in which curriculum development has broadened and strengthened our conceptions of high standards in historical learning for school students. He pays tribute to ground-breaking new theoretical principles from the Schools History Project and from new emphases upon contextual knowledge and ‘interpretations' in the first National...
Three lessons about a funeral: Second World War cemeteries and twenty years of curriculum change
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Gladstone spiritual or Gladstone material? A rationale for using documents at AS and A2
Teaching History article
Rather than taking a sledgehammer approach to planning for the new AS and A2 courses Gary Howells has used the opportunity to reflect on characteristics of students' historical learning in the post-16 phase. He argues for a much fuller rationale for using documents than mere preparation for exams or coursework....
Gladstone spiritual or Gladstone material? A rationale for using documents at AS and A2
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Understanding Slavery
Free Online Resource
Teaching the transatlantic slave trade and its abolition in British history is now a compulsory component of the revised KS3 History curriculum.
The Understanding Slavery Initiative (USI) is a national education project set up in 2003. The initiative has been developed in partnership with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich,...
Understanding Slavery
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Women and the Politics of the Parish in England
Historian article
Petticoat Politicians: Women and the Politics of the Parish in England
The history of women voting in Britain is familiar to many. 2013 marked the centenary of the zenith of the militant female suffrage movement, culminating in the tragic death of Emily Wilding Davison, crushed by the King's horse at...
Women and the Politics of the Parish in England
