-
Podcast Series: Thomas Paine
Multipage Article
In this set of podcasts Emeritus Professor W. A. Speck of the University of Leeds looks at the life and ideas of Thomas Paine.
Podcast Series: Thomas Paine
-
The Enlightenment
Classic Pamphlet
Can a movement as varied and diffuse as the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century be contained within the covers of a short pamphlet? The problem would certainly have appealed to the intellectuals of that time. Generalists rather than specialists, citizens of the whole world of knowledge, they relished the challenge...
The Enlightenment
-
The Englishness of George Orwell
Podcast
George Orwell is best known for Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty Four - one book an allegory of The Russian Revolution, and the other a science fiction dystopia about a globalized world. Before these two last works, the heart and soul of Orwell's writing had been about England and the...
The Englishness of George Orwell
-
The Personal Rule of Charles I 1629-40
Classic Pamphlet
Historians are often accused of viewing the past with hindsight, or of being wise after the event. Not being prophets or soothsayers, we have to look backwards in time because we cannot look forwards. The real question is from what vantage point or perspective we view a particular part of...
The Personal Rule of Charles I 1629-40
-
Five stones in St Albans: life in Verulamium
Historian article
In this article, based on a prize winning essay for the Historical Association’s Young Historian competition, Alice Finnie explores aspects of the important Roman town of Verulamium, on the site of the modern city of St Albans. Her focus is on five stones that survive from the Roman period. She...
Five stones in St Albans: life in Verulamium
-
Mission to Kabul: Destabilising the British strategic position, 1916
Historian article
Jules Stewart gives us an insight into how the Germans attempted to destabilise the British strategic position in Afghanistan during the Great War.
On a state visit to Berlin in 1928, the Emir of Afghanistan Amanullah Khan was shown a display of the latest in German technology, which included a...
Mission to Kabul: Destabilising the British strategic position, 1916
-
1066: The Limits of our Knowledge
Historian article
As the most pivotal and traumatic event in English history, the Norman Conquest continues to generate controversy and debate, especially among those who know little about it or enjoy passing judgement on the past. Who had the better claim to the English throne, William the Conqueror or Harold Godwineson? Was...
1066: The Limits of our Knowledge
-
Film: Domestic Politics and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film Professor Sue Doran, Jesus College, University of Oxford and Professor Steven Gunn, Merton College, University of Oxford, discuss the impact that domestic politics and rebellion had on Tudor Royal Authority and the development of domestic policy.
Film: Domestic Politics and Tudor Royal Authority – discussion
-
The Journey to Icarie and Reunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier
Historian article
The viewer of the internationally popular television show Dallas was routinely treated to an aerial tour that skimmed across the open prairie over the distinctive skyscrapers across the fifty-yard line of Texas Stadium and up the manicured pastures of South Fork.
This façade of larger-than-life Texana reflects an urban reality...
The Journey to Icarie and Reunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier
-
The Evolution of the British Electoral System 1832-1987
Classic Pamphlet
During the last 20 years our perspective on the great Victorian question of parliamentary reform has noticeably changed. We have acquired a comprehensive picture of the organisation and political socialisation of those who won the vote; and some interesting debates have developed about the social characteristics of the electors and...
The Evolution of the British Electoral System 1832-1987
-
Film: Social & Cultural Change
Film series: Power and authority in Germany, 1871-1991
How did a new Germany rebuild itself from the legacy of the Second World War both physically, emotionally and culturally? Professor Stibbe explores the silences of many households and how that influenced the student rebellion of the late 1960s. He also puts into perspective the cultural impact that the war...
Film: Social & Cultural Change
-
Civilian expertise in war
Historian article
Philip Hamlyn Williams introduces us to the commercial and industrial background to modern-day warfare.
When I think of war, I immediately see men and women in one of three uniforms: Royal Navy, RAF and Army. My research over the past seven years into how the British army was supplied in two...
Civilian expertise in war
-
English Puritanism
Classic Pamphlet
When the modern world was christened Puritanism appeared as a bad fairy and bestowed upon it certain dubious gifts: capitalism, democracy, America. This is a fairy story, but like all fairy stories it contains a small grain of truth. But what was Puritanism? Already in the seventeenth century a critic...
English Puritanism
-
Recorded Webinar: Resisting Reagan
Article
Recorded Webinar: Resisting Reagan
-
The Chapel and the Nation
Classic Pamphlet
The Noncoformitst chapel has played a crucial role in the history of the English and Welsh nations. When the great French historian Elie Halevy sought to explain the contrast between the turbulent history of his own country and the peaceful evolution of England in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries...
The Chapel and the Nation
-
Out and About in Stockholm
Historian feature
When Désirée Clary – wife of French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte – arrived in Stockholm in 1811, she was appalled. It was true that she would eventually become Queen Desideria of Sweden and Norway, her husband having been elected heir-presumptive to the throne the previous year. But she left her new capital...
Out and About in Stockholm
-
The ‘workless workers’ and the Waterbury watch
Historian article
Peter Hounsell looks at the role of the Waterbury Watch Company in both the Queen’s Jubilee and the attempt to record and alleviate unemployment in London in the 1880s.
In Britain generally, but for London in particular, 1887 was a year of great contrasts. On 27 June, Londoners lined the...
The ‘workless workers’ and the Waterbury watch
-
1968: the year of reckoning
Historian article
Hugh Gault explains why, 50 years later, 1968 is still remembered as a dramatic year.
1967 was 'the summer of love', and that spirit continued into 1968; but there were also many events in 1968 that were of a different sort, when the liberty of 1967 was accompanied by a...
1968: the year of reckoning
-
Eleanor of Aquitaine’s journey
Historian article
Danielle E.A. Park takes us on a journey across the Pyrenees and Alps with a redoubtable woman.
Eleanor of Aquitaine has acquired a reputation as something of a femme fatale. Her considerable inheritance of Aquitaine, marriages to two kings, the allegations of an affair with her uncle Raymond of Poitiers,...
Eleanor of Aquitaine’s journey
-
Migration into the UK in the early twenty-first century
Historian article
Sam Scott and Lucy Clarke explore the data covering more recent migration to the United Kingdom, most especially from the EU. They discover that since 2000 migrant destinations have changed. No longer do migrants head exclusively to the big cities and industrial areas, but to rural areas, like Boston in...
Migration into the UK in the early twenty-first century
-
Gone with the Wind: a great book?
Historian article
HA President Tony Badger examines the historical context which shapes our understanding of Margaret Mitchell’s enduring novel.
I had been a historian of the American South for 50 years and like Ringbaum, I had a secret. I had never read Gone with the Wind. As I came up to retirement...
Gone with the Wind: a great book?
-
To what extent was the failure of denazification in Germany 1945-48 a result of the apathy of the allies?
Historian article
To blame the failure of the denazification process in postwar Germany entirely on a vague and generalised concept such as apathy is simplistic and does not stand up to serious scrutiny. Denazification was one of the most ambitious attempts ever at provoking an artificial revolution; it is reasonable to assume...
To what extent was the failure of denazification in Germany 1945-48 a result of the apathy of the allies?
-
Who were the Nuns? English Convents in Exile 1600-1800
Public History Podcast
An HA Public History Podcast featuring Dr Andrew Foster and Dr Caroline Bowden discussing the project: Who were the Nuns? A Prosopographical study of the English Convents in exile 1600-1800.
'Who were the Nuns?' is a funded project at Queen Mary, Universty of London that has been making a comprehensive study of...
Who were the Nuns? English Convents in Exile 1600-1800
-
The Indian Mutiny - Pamphlet
Classic Pamphlet
Harrison's booklet takes an evaluative look, at not just the effects of the Indian Mutiny on Indo-British history, but at the reporting of this event over the years. He begins with a look at the prejudices of British writers and British historians' attitude towards the mutiny, highlighting the flawed confidence western...
The Indian Mutiny - Pamphlet
-
Louis XIV
Classic Pamphlet
Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 and became King on May 14 1643 at the age of four years and eight months on the death of his father Louis XIII. He attended the Conseil d'en haut from 1649 when he was eleven years old. He announced his coming...
Louis XIV
