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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
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Real Lives: Anna Wessels Williams (1863–1954)
Historian feature
Patrick J Pead writes about a truly remarkable woman whose contribution to advances in medicine deserves far wider recognition.
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...
Real Lives: Anna Wessels Williams (1863–1954)
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Opinion: the populist politics of Joseph Chamberlain and Donald Trump
Historian feature
What are the pitfalls and pluses of comparing historical figures with contemporary politicians? Chris Godden argues that recent comparisons of Donald Trump with one of his predecessors may be wide of the mark, but that a more illuminating parallel may be found with one of Britain’s most controversial nineteenth-century politicians.
Opinion: the populist politics of Joseph Chamberlain and Donald Trump
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Social Darwinism: the myth and its reinvention
Historian article
‘Social Darwinism’ has been associated in academia and popular consciousness with negative concepts such as hyper-nationalism and eugenics. Geoffrey M. Hodgson challenges the notion that Social Darwinism or its proponents were ever well-defined. By tracing the use of ‘Social Darwinism’ across academic disciplines and globally over a long period, Hodgson...
Social Darwinism: the myth and its reinvention
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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
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Introductory film: Lenin - Interpretations
Part of the HA Interpretations Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
Log in below to preview the introductory film - available to all registered users of the website.
This open access introductory film forms part of our ongoing film series on Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union. All the films are available through the Student Zone with corporate secondary membership. ...
Introductory film: Lenin - Interpretations
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Introductory film: Khrushchev - Interpretations
Part of the HA Interpretations Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
Log in below to preview the introductory film - available to all registered users of the website.
This open access introductory film forms part of our ongoing film series on Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union. All the films are available through the Student Zone with corporate secondary...
Introductory film: Khrushchev - Interpretations
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Ending Camelot: the assassination of John F Kennedy
Historian article
The murder of America’s thirty-fifth president is often regarded as one of the key events in the recent history of the United States. Numerous conspiracy theories have made it appear more complex, and more mysterious, than was in fact the case.
No event in recent American history has been more comprehensively...
Ending Camelot: the assassination of John F Kennedy
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The Mary Celeste: the history of a mystery
Historian article
Graham Faiella guides us through the historical evidence and literary speculation surrounding one of the ultimately unresolved incidents of recent times.
One hundred and fifty years ago, sometime between 25 November and 4 December 1872, the brigantine Mary Celeste was abandoned at sea somewhere between the Azores and the coast of Portugal....
The Mary Celeste: the history of a mystery
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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
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Doomed to fail: America’s intervention in Vietnam
Historian article
Why did American military involvement in Vietnam fail? In this article, David McGill explains why the United States never had a realistic chance of defeating the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies.
The decision by the United States government to become involved in supporting the South Vietnamese government against the...
Doomed to fail: America’s intervention in Vietnam
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Facing the Revolution: the other Americans
Historian article
The American Revolution presented all who lived through it with difficult choices about allegiance, identity, and self-interest. The responses of American loyalists, enslaved people, and Native Americans reveal much about the country’s revolutionary foundation and the United States of today.
The American Revolution was at once universal and narrowly nationalistic....
Facing the Revolution: the other Americans
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Muddy Waters: from migrant to music icon
Historian article
Matt Jux-Blayney explores the impact of the blues singer Muddy Waters against a backdrop of significant social and racial change in the United States of the mid-twentieth century.
On 3 July 1960, a man from Mississippi was introduced onto the stage of the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. He...
Muddy Waters: from migrant to music icon
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History Abridged: American Policy: theory and practice over 200 years
Historian feature
History Abridged: In this feature we take a person, time, theme or event and tell you the vast rich history in small space. A long dip into history in a shortened form. See all History Abridged articles
The ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in 1825 provided a cornerstone for future United States foreign policy. Drafted...
History Abridged: American Policy: theory and practice over 200 years
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Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36
Historian article
Philip Woods discusses Evelyn Waugh’s contribution to understanding the nature of journalism before the Second World War.
This article compares the value to historians of the two books Evelyn Waugh wrote based on his experiences as a war correspondent covering the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935–36. The popular satiric novel Scoop (1938) is...
Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36
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Out and About in Madagascar
Historian feature
Madagascar is one of the world’s more intriguing destinations. If it is famous for anything – apart from sharing a name with a truly terrible film franchise – it is probably for its wildlife, much of which is found nowhere else. But whereas most people have at least an idea of...
Out and About in Madagascar
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After the revolution: did Cromwell, Washington and Bonaparte betray revolutionary principles?
Historian article
This article examines the aftermath of three epoch-making periods of change – the English, American, and French Revolutions. A comparison of the trio of military commanders who gained power as a direct consequence of these upheavals reveals how the very political radicalism which brought them to power also threatened to...
After the revolution: did Cromwell, Washington and Bonaparte betray revolutionary principles?
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Flight from Kabul: a historical perspective
Historian article
In this article, Matt Jux-Blayney compares the British retreat from Kabul in 1842 with the most recent flight of NATO from Kabul in August 2021. Matt explores the various similarities between the two campaigns and includes personal recollections from his service in Afghanistan with the British Army.
On 6 January...
Flight from Kabul: a historical perspective
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Recorded webinar: History, Politics and Journalism
Teacher and Student Study Session
History, politics and journalism are intertwined. In this webinar (filmed in December 2021) Professor Anna Whitelock and members of her department from City, University of London explore the inter-related history, politics and journalism of Russia and the Cold War. First, Dina Fainberg explores Soviet relations with the world under Nikita...
Recorded webinar: History, Politics and Journalism
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British armoured cars on the Eastern Front in the First World War
Historian article
Charlotte Alston reveals a little-known British involvement on the Eastern Front in the Great War.In early January 1918, Lieutenant Commander Soames of the British Armoured Car Division at Kursk, in Russia, telegraphed to his commandingofficer Oliver Locker Lampson, who was in London, to thank him for his Christmas greetings. All...
British armoured cars on the Eastern Front in the First World War
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History Abridged: Language and the African continent
Historian feature
History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles
Africa is a huge continent...
History Abridged: Language and the African continent
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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
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Women’s friendship in late eighteenth-century America and its relevance to lockdown
Historian article
Rowan Cookson offers us the opportunity to compare our contemporary anxieties with a stressful era in American history.
Eighteenth-century women’s friendship is worth considering at this time. In my undergraduate dissertation, I concluded that white wealthy women’s friendship in eighteenth-century America equired long distance communication, involved labour and perpetuated race and class...
Women’s friendship in late eighteenth-century America and its relevance to lockdown
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‘Power to the people’? Disputed presidential elections in US history
Historian article
Michael Dunne reveals the complex background to the modern elaborate constitutional process of electing a United States President.
On Wednesday, 20 January 2021, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., was inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States of America. In years to come these simple words may seem prosaic and...
‘Power to the people’? Disputed presidential elections in US history
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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
