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Found 705 results matching 'brief history' within Historian > Historical Periods > Modern   (Clear filter)

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  • Virtual Branch recording: The Maginot Line

      Article
    Why did the the Maginot Line – that marvel of 1930s engineering with its miles of fortifications and bunkers to deter German invasion – fail so spectacularly in 1940?  Its vast underground forts were designed to withstand artillery and chemical attack, yet France fell in just six weeks, leaving the Line as a symbol...
    Virtual Branch recording: The Maginot Line

  • Film: China's Good War

      How World War II is shaping a new nationalism
    In this lecture Professor Mitter uses film and other propaganda works to explore how key events of global history are being represented in China to develop a different understanding of its own past. The talk addresses a number of the factors for this change in how China is reflecting on...
    Film: China's Good War

  • Opinion: Who was ‘the man of his time’?

      Historian article
    In this new, occasional section of The Historian, contributors share their thoughts on matters of public historical debate. We invite our readers to respond, either by writing to the editors at thehistorian@history.org.uk or by writing their own opinion piece. Here, Lorenzo Kamel shares his thoughts on why saying ‘he was a...
    Opinion: Who was ‘the man of his time’?

  • The Importance of Truth, Quality and Objectivity in the BBC German Service from 1938 to 1945

      Historian article
    Throughout the Second World War the BBC produced and transmitted regular broadcasts in German to Germany and other European countries occupied by the Germans. In this article Hattie Simpson evaluates the style and success of the BBC German Service. The article is based on her winning entry in the senior...
    The Importance of Truth, Quality and Objectivity in the BBC German Service from 1938 to 1945

  • Out and about in Zanzibar

      Historian article
    Joe Wilkinson takes us on a tour of the island of Zanzibar, where the slave trade continued long after the British abolished it. Mention Zanzibar and most people will think of an Indian Ocean paradise, perfect for honeymooners, relaxing on the popular pristine white north-eastern beaches of Bwejuu and Paje,...
    Out and about in Zanzibar

  • Out and About: Kennington and the Elephant and Castle

      Historian feature
    The HA's very own Martin Hoare takes us on a tour of Kennington and Elephant and Castle, to some lesser-known gems that ought to be higher on the London tourist trail. Over the years of working for the HA I’ve quite often used my lunch break to take walks around the areas...
    Out and About: Kennington and the Elephant and Castle

  • Women in British Coal Mining

      Historian article
    With the final closure of Britain’s deep coal mines, Chris Wrigley examines the long-standing involvement of women in and around this challenging and dangerous form of work. With the closure in 2015 of Thoresby and Kellingley mines, the last two working deep coal mines in Britain, leaving only open-cast coal...
    Women in British Coal Mining

  • 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

  • The changing shapes of Europe’s twentieth century

      Exploring twentieth-century history
    In this discussion of the twentieth century, Martin Conway considers the implications of linking notions of military conflict and division with the emergence of modernity. The idea of World War II as the distinct dividing line between the present and past, and the ways in which it began a time...
    The changing shapes of Europe’s twentieth century

  • The cultural biography of opium in China

      Historian article
    Zheng Yangwen shows that despite its association with trade, war and politics, opium was first of all a history of consumption. Opium has fascinated generations of scholars and generated excellent scholarship on the opium trade, Anglo-Chinese relations, the two opium wars, and Commissioner Lin. The field has diversified in the post-Mao...
    The cultural biography of opium in China

  • How is the source base of the twentieth century different from that of earlier periods?

      Article
    Historians often debate when, exactly, the twentieth century began; that is, when the themes and trends that we have come to understand as defining this tumultuous, rapidly changing period first started, and when they ended. One place we can look to answer this question is the available primary resources that help...
    How is the source base of the twentieth century different from that of earlier periods?

  • Show and Tell: three Branch book events

      Historian article
    When members of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Branch were invited to share their views on ‘Books that Changed History’, not all the contributions were as overtly revolutionary as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense nor as familiar as the King James Bible. Marie Davidson and Richard Binns tell us more....
    Show and Tell: three Branch book events

  • Terriers in India

      Historian Article
    Peter Stanley is working on the largely unexplored history of the thousands of British Territorial soldiers who served in India during the First World War using their letters and diaries. He is trying to discover what happened to these men when they returned to Britain. Did their service in India...
    Terriers in India

  • 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

  • Film: Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea

      Article
    Professor Jan Rüger joined the Virtual Branch on 9th February 2023 to talk about his book Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea, tracing a rich history of contact and conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War. For generations this North Sea island expressed a German...
    Film: Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea

  • Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War

      Churchill's Great Game
    In this HA Virtual Branch talk Professor Richard Toye explores Churchill’s response to the USSR and how his actions during the early Cold War years intersected with his views of traditional Anglo-Russian tensions and the legacy of the ‘Great Game’. Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University...
    Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War

  • The Legacy of the Z Special Unit in World War II

      Historian article
    The Spirit of Normandy Trust Essay Competition is aimed at young historians and organised by the Historical Association (as part of the annual Young Historian Awards). The 2023 winner in the Key Stage 3 (lower secondary school) category is Ayan Sinha, a pupil at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Wakefield. In this abridged...
    The Legacy of the Z Special Unit in World War II

  • The Great Yarmouth Suspension Bridge Disaster of 1845

      Historian article
    Many communities have cataclysmic disasters which tend to dominate or define their local history. Gareth Davies reveals that the sudden collapse of the Great Yarmouth Suspension Bridge is a telling example of this trend. Beside the waters of the River Bure in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk stands a shiny black memorial...
    The Great Yarmouth Suspension Bridge Disaster of 1845

  • Recorded Webinar: ‘Drawing the Line’: the 1947 Partition of India

      Article
    August 2022 marks 75 years since British India was divided at independence into two separate states: India and Pakistan (the latter including today’s Bangladesh). As with the 70th commemoration in 2017, this anniversary will trigger a great deal of collective remembering in Britain just as in South Asia itself. Freedom from...
    Recorded Webinar: ‘Drawing the Line’: the 1947 Partition of India

  • Broken bodies and racial lessons: disabled Wehrmacht veterans in Nazi Germany

      Historian article
    Throughout history, war has been one of the great producers of disability, and the disabled veteran has often provoked feelings of pride and pity. In this article, Christopher Thomas Goodwin explores the multiple meanings of the disabled soldier in Nazi Germany...
    Broken bodies and racial lessons: disabled Wehrmacht veterans in Nazi Germany

  • Shadow states and armed struggle

      Historian article
    How did groups resisting the creation of new borders after 1947 use shadow state structures?  Luke Rimmo Lego, Abigail Tamang and Sneha Singh with Laishram Bullion and Chinglai Ngamba Moirangthem explore the history of these structures and their development over the past half century.
    Shadow states and armed struggle

  • Art and ecology

      Historian article
    Artworks and objects from the past provide us with a compelling record of human interaction with the natural world. In this article, art historians Carla Benzan and Samuel Shaw explain how they are using collections from galleries and museums to bring environmental history to new audiences and to increase awareness...
    Art and ecology

  • Glacier Tours in the Northern Playground

      Historian article
    Glaciers are on the frontier of the climate crisis. Their ongoing disappearance is one of its most visible effects. In this article, Christian Drury explores how tourists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries viewed and understood glaciers, and what they contributed to the history of environmental thought...
    Glacier Tours in the Northern Playground

  • The Chinese National Anthem

      Historian article
    The history of the Chinese national anthem gives Derek Ying a new perspective on society and culture from the era of the Qing dynasty to the People’s Republic of China. It reveals the strengths and weaknesses of different regimes, and the power of song to unite and divide...
    The Chinese National Anthem

  • Do historical anniversaries matter? Case study: Arnhem 1944

      Historian feature
    2019 has been quite a year for historical anniversaries – Peterloo 200, D-Day 75, Monte Cassino 75, Women MPs 100 years, Apollo Moon Landings 50 years and all following on the tail of four years of the First World War centenary – and that is not counting the anniversaries that...
    Do historical anniversaries matter? Case study: Arnhem 1944