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Napoleon: First Consul and Emperor of the French
Classic Pamphlet
Four years after the battle of Waterloo, Richard Whately publicised a philosophical essay in which he argued that there was no real proof of Napoleon's existence. The deeds attributed to him were either so wondrously good or so amazingly bad that they far outran the evidence available to support them:...
Napoleon: First Consul and Emperor of the French
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Anne Herbert: A life in the Wars of the Roses
Historian article
May I introduce you to Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke? I'm very fond of this modern imagined portrait by Graham Turner, partly because of the colour and detail but chiefly because it conveys a respect for the people who lived in the past and especially for Anne herself. My interest...
Anne Herbert: A life in the Wars of the Roses
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Christopher Hill: Marxism and Methodism
Historian article
Christopher Hill, the eminent historian of seventeenth century England, was a convinced Marxist throughout most of his long and productive life (1912-2003). He embraced this secular world-view when he was a young History student at Oxford in the polemical 1930s and never lost his ideological commitment, even though he resigned...
Christopher Hill: Marxism and Methodism
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1851 by Asa Briggs
Classic Pamphlet
This classic pamphlet is being re-published in digital form to coincide with the special edition of The Historian devoted to the memory of Asa Briggs. He was one of the most illustrious members of the Historical Association and a devotedly loyal member all his life.
One Historian has said that...
1851 by Asa Briggs
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King Charles I
Classic Pamphlet
The principles involved in the great religious and constitutional conflicts of the seventeenth century are so important to us today, that it seems desirable on the occasion of the present tercentenary to lay before the members of the Historical Association some means of examining and re-examining their views on the...
King Charles I
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Will China Democratise?
Historian article
Michael T. Davis compares the parallels between the democratic expectations, or possibilities, of modern-day China with Britain's democratic evolution from the eighteenth century to the emerging democracy of the nineteenth century.
The future is an unfamiliar place for historians. Yet we stand on the edge of an historic shift away...
Will China Democratise?
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What did you do in The Great War? A family mystery explored
Historian article
Research into family history is well-known as likely to dig up some uncomfortable evidence. Nearly every family has had its bastards; nearly every generation has had someone on poor relief. We had both. But more troubling was my recent suspicion that a hundred or so years ago not one but two...
What did you do in The Great War? A family mystery explored
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Faction in Tudor England
Classic Pamphlet
'This wicked Tower must be fed with blood' - W. S. Gilbert's dialogue sums up the popular myth of Tudor England. This pamphlet looks at the reality, a society and politics necessarily divided into rival factions by the pulls of patronage, local loyalty and the implications of personal monarchy, and...
Faction in Tudor England
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The Slave trade and British Abolition, 1787-1807
Historian article
In the 1780’s the British slave trade thrived. In that decade alone more than one thousand British and British colonial slave ships sailed for the slave coasts of Africa and transported more than 300,000 Africans. There was little evidence that here was a system uncertain about its economic future. If...
The Slave trade and British Abolition, 1787-1807
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The Irish historians' role and the place of history in Irish national life
Historian article
The debate on the nation and its history is new to England; and there is, perhaps, a tendency to assume that what is new in England is new everywhere. In Ireland, the debate has been going on since the 1970s, fuelled by what is called ‘revisionism’; or rather, by a...
The Irish historians' role and the place of history in Irish national life
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The Albigensian Crusade
Classic Pamphlet
At the time of the First Crusade southern France was strongly Catholic: the army led by Raymond IV of Toulouse was the largest single force to take part in the expedition and was recruited from all classes. Yet eighty years later the Count's grandson, Raymond V, sent this appeal form...
The Albigensian Crusade
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Britain and Brittany: contact, myth and history in the early Middle Ages
Historian article
Fiona Edmonds evidences the enduring links between Brittany and Britain throughout the early Middle Ages.
Every year many thousands of British holidaymakers travel to Brittany in search of beaches, bisque and bonhomie. As they board the ferry, they may notice that they are travelling from one Bretagne to another. The names...
Britain and Brittany: contact, myth and history in the early Middle Ages
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The snobbery of chronology: In defence of the generals on the Western Front
Historian article
Faced with the testimony of the huge casualty lists of the First World War, the desperate battles of attrition, the emotive evidence of the seemingly endless cemeteries and memorials, the moving war poetry of men such as Owen and Sassoon, and the memoirs of those who fought, it is not...
The snobbery of chronology: In defence of the generals on the Western Front
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The Casket Letters
Article
In May 1568 Mary Queen of Scots was riding in fear for her life to the wilds of Galloway. She crossed the Solway confident that she would receive the help which her cousin Queen Elizabeth had promised her, but instead found herself a prisoner. In the subsequent months a series...
The Casket Letters
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King Charles II
Classic Pamphlet
The conclusions of historians change over the years, not only as a result of the discovery of new evidence, but as a result of the changing times in which historians themselves live and work. We have become familiar with the notion that each generation of historians may have its own...
King Charles II
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Medieval 'Signs and Marvels'
Historian article
Medieval ‘Signs and Marvels': insights into medieval ideas about nature and the cosmic order.
Many aspects of life in the Middle Ages puzzle the modern reader but some are stranger than others. What can possibly explain an event reported from Orford Castle, in Suffolk? This is an amazing tale and...
Medieval 'Signs and Marvels'
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England's Immigrants 1330-1550
Multipage Article
An HA Podcast with Professor Mark Ormrod of the University of York looking at the research project England's Immigrants 1330-1550. In this podcast Professor Ormrod explores the extensive archival evidence about the names, origins, occupations and households of a significant number of foreigners who chose to make their lives and livelihoods in...
England's Immigrants 1330-1550
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Stalin, Propaganda, and Soviet Society during the Great Terror
Historian article
Sarah Davies explores the evidence that even in the most repressive phases of Stalin’s rule, there existed a flourishing ‘shadow culture’, a lively and efficient unofficial network of information and ideas. 'Today a man only talks freely with his wife — at night, with the blankets pulled over his head.’...
Stalin, Propaganda, and Soviet Society during the Great Terror
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Nazi aggression: planned or improvised?
Historian article
Read more like this:
Nazism and Stalinism
Fascism in Europe 1919-1945
Kristallnacht
Anti-semitism and the Holocaust
The Coming of War in 1939
Political internment without trial in wartime Britain
Neville Chamberlain: villain or hero?
The Mechanical Battle of Britain
Since the 1960s, there have been two main schools of thought...
Nazi aggression: planned or improvised?
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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
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Ofsted and History in Schools
Article
HM Inspector John Hamer reviews the evidence. In a lecture marking the 150th anniversary of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Schools, Peter Gordon recalled a nineteenth century HMI, the Reverend W.H. Brookfield. His circle of friends included Tennyson, the Hallams and Thomas Carlyle.
Ofsted and History in Schools
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Vichy France and the Jews
Article
Dr Julian Jackson examines the position and treatment of Jews in Occupied France. When in 1945 France came to try those who had ‘collaborated’ during the war, the fate of the Jews was not central. It was even possible for Xavier Vallat, Vichy’s Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, to defend himself...
Vichy France and the Jews
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The Pilgrimage of Grace: Reactions, Responses and Revisions
Article
Dr Michael Bush investigates the interpretations of the pilgrimage of grace. Our perception of the pilgrimage of grace has been largely created by Madeleine and Ruth Dodds and their magnificent book The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536-7, and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538 (Cambridge). Published in 1915, it has dominated the subject...
The Pilgrimage of Grace: Reactions, Responses and Revisions
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Cartooning King Cotton
Article
While cartoons have been widely used by historians of ‘High Politics’ or diplomacy, they have been used less often by social historians. Alan Fowler and Terry Wyke examine a source for the social history of the Lancashire cotton industry. Cartoons have long held a fascination for historians, though when using...
Cartooning King Cotton
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'Wanted, The Elusive Charlie Peace': A Sheffield Killer Of The 1870s As Popular Hero
Historian article
On 28 November 1876, William and John Habron, Irish brothers habitually in trouble with the police, were tried at Manchester Assizes for the murder three months before of Police Constable Nicholas Cock (on the basis of ‘scientific’ footprint evidence at the scene of the crime). The jury found 19 year-old...
'Wanted, The Elusive Charlie Peace': A Sheffield Killer Of The 1870s As Popular Hero
