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Why did the prosecution of witches cease in England?
Pamphlet
This lucid survey of the history of witch trials in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth century focuses on the question of ‘why did the formal prosecution of witches cease?' Accusations of witchcraft can be found throughout the nineteenth century yet the last conviction was in 1712. Clive Holmes explores...
Why did the prosecution of witches cease in England?
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Henry V
Pamphlet
Christopher Allmand updates his earlier pamphlet on Henry V, taking into account research and ideas explored by historians over the last 50 years, to produce a much more rounded view of Henry V. The book is split into three parts - Henry V in history; Henry as he is viewed...
Henry V
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Copernicus and the Reformation of Astronomy
Classic Pamphlet
During the past four centuries, the processes of nature have come to be viewed in a new light through the progressive acquisition of the systematized, verifiable knowledge that we call science. The associated advances in technology have profoundly affected the circumstances of our daily lives, and have revolutionised the mutual...
Copernicus and the Reformation of Astronomy
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The Darien Scheme - Pamphlet
Classic Pamphlet
The colonisation project that became known as the Darien Scheme or Darien Disaster was an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called "Caledonia" on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darién in the late 1690s.
This pamphlet...
The Darien Scheme - Pamphlet
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King James’s Book of Sports, 1617
Historian article
Forty years after his higher degree research into the history of sport, Trevor James explores the much wider context in which that research now stands.
Four hundred years ago, in 1617, James I made a decisive intervention into the simmering debate which had existed since the puritanical upsurge in Queen...
King James’s Book of Sports, 1617
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The 1620 Mayflower voyage and the English settlement of North America
Historian article
On the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims in New England on the Mayflower, Martyn Whittock explores the reasons for migration to the New World in 1620 and later, and the significance of those migrants, both at the time and their impact on the evolution of the USA...
The 1620 Mayflower voyage and the English settlement of North America
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Immigration and the making of British food
Historian article
Panikos Panayi explores the way in which immigration has transformed British eating habits over the last two centuries, whether through the rise of the restaurant and the development of eating out, or the culinary revolution at home.
Those people who voted to leave the European Union in 2016 because of...
Immigration and the making of British food
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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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From Disraeli to Callaghan: Britain 1879 - 1979
Historian article
A previously unpublished survey of British history by A.J.P. Taylor. It is a characteristic piece, though marked by gloom about the then recent inflation. Introduced by Historical Association President Chris Wrigley.
From Disraeli to Callaghan: Britain 1879 - 1979
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Exploring local sources
Historian article
Tim Lomas was correct when he said, in his article in the Summer 2019 edition of The Historian, that historians can see much more in medieval documents than the scribes intended.
Lay manors in Bedfordshire are a good example. Eggington manor, in the south-west, was part of a larger estate and held...
Exploring local sources
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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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Stalinism
Classic Pamphlet
Stalin's remarkable career raises quite fundamental questions for anyone interested in history. Marxists, whose philosophy should cause them to downgrade the role of ‘great men' as an explanation of great events, have problems in fitting Stalin into the materialist interpretation of history: did not this man ride rough-shod over the...
Stalinism
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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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Robert Peel: Portraiture and political commemoration
Article
On 4 March 1856, during a debate in the House of Lords on a motion to form a ‘Gallery of National Portraits', the Conservative peer Earl Stanhope quoted Thomas Carlyle's view that ‘one of the most primary wants [of the historian is] to secure a bodily likeness of the personage...
Robert Peel: Portraiture and political commemoration
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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 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
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Florence Nightingale and epidemics
Historian article
Richard Bates reveals how the expertise of Florence Nightingale is just as relevant now as it was in her own life-time.
Late in 2020, the Merriam-Webster dictionary chose ‘pandemic’ as its word of the year, writing that, ‘it’s probably the word by which we’ll refer to this period [i.e. Covid-19...
Florence Nightingale and epidemics
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The Sykes-Picot agreement and lines in the sand
Historian article
Paula Kitching reveals how a secret diplomatic negotiation 100 years ago provides an insight into the political complexities of the modern-day Middle East.
The Middle East is an area frequently in the news. Over the last ten years the national and religious tensions appear to have exploded with whole regions...
The Sykes-Picot agreement and lines in the sand
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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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Saxons, Normans and Victorians
Classic Pamphlet
When Queen Victoria died in 1901, the Annual Register remarked that the feeling of forlorn-ness which swept the country had no parallel since the death of King Alfred. The men of the new century were driven to seek a Saxon parallel. So too were men at the beginning of the...
Saxons, Normans and Victorians
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Film: The Origins of Mass Society - Speech, Sex and Drink in Urbanising Britain, 1780-1870
Article
Professor Peter Mandler is the current president of the Historical Association. As part of our 'presidents season' for the HA Virtual Branch he gave a fascinating talk on The Origins of Mass Society: Speech, Sex and Drink in Urbanising Britain, 1780-1870.
In this talk he explores the impact of the changes in...
Film: The Origins of Mass Society - Speech, Sex and Drink in Urbanising Britain, 1780-1870
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Film: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War
The Searchers
Historian Robert Sackville-West joined the HA Virtual Branch in November 2021 to talk about the topic of his book The Searchers: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War. By the end of the First World War, the whereabouts of more than half a million British soldiers were unknown. Most were presumed...
Film: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War
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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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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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Real Lives: Alice Daye: mother of the English book trade
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: Alice Daye: mother of the English book trade
