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The emergence of the first civilisations
Historian article
Paul Bracey – The emergence of civilisations provided fundamental changes in the capacity for human development. This said, they exhibited similarities, differences, frailties, negative and positive attributes and should be related to a broadly based appreciation of the past.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the assumption was that...
The emergence of the first civilisations
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Enduring Civilisation: cities and citizens in the ‘Aztec Empire’
Historian article
Katherine Bellamy explores the cities and citizens at the heart of the so-called ‘Aztec Empire’, a vast and complex network of distinct indigenous communities who endured despite Spanish colonisation.
The term ‘civilisation’ is derived from the Latin, civilis (civil), and closely connected to civitas (city) and civis (citizen). The cities...
Enduring Civilisation: cities and citizens in the ‘Aztec Empire’
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The Historian 146: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 146: Civilisations
Join The Historian editorial board As with all HA publications The Historian is edited by our members and has a small board of volunteers who discuss possible themes, commission articles, review and commission for regular features and read and respond to articles submitted by members....
The Historian 146: Out now
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Homes fit for heroes? James Cecil and the public interest
Historian article
Hugh Gault reminds us that the provision of adequate and price-accessible housing stock has been a matter of public debate and concern for over a hundred years. Economics and financial priorities have continued to undermine the methodologies and good intentions needed to solve the problem.
This year is the hundredth...
Homes fit for heroes? James Cecil and the public interest
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Child Health & School meals: Nottingham 1906-1945
Historian article
Following Jamie Oliver’s devastating television series on the inadequacy of school meals the present government has been quick to be seen to address the situation. In September 2005, Ruth Kelly, the then Education Secretary, announced a war on junk food in schools.1 This was nothing new, because the history of...
Child Health & School meals: Nottingham 1906-1945
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What does the future hold for Archives and what do the archives hold for you?
Historian article
Most people would accept that our Society is changing at a rate, and in ways, with which our predecessors have never had to deal. The old stabilities and certainties seem to have disappeared from our modern day lives. Perhaps this is why so many people seem to be interested in...
What does the future hold for Archives and what do the archives hold for you?
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Out and About: on the trail of the Pentrich Rebellion
Historian feature
Richard Gaunt introduces us to a revolutionary incident in mid-Derbyshire whose 200th anniversary is commemorated this year.
Out and About: on the trail of the Pentrich Rebellion
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Duffy's devices: teaching Year 13 to read and write
Teaching History article
Rachel Ward’s intriguing title seems a little out of place in an edition on teaching the most able. The point she makes, though, is that even our very brightest post-16 students need to be encouraged both to engage with the historiography surrounding their course and to learn to write with...
Duffy's devices: teaching Year 13 to read and write
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Cheshire Country Houses
Article
The popular image of Cheshire is of a flat green landscape dotted with cows, of black and white houses, a county remote from the great events that have shaped the nation's history. This reflects the endurance of the old manorial class that maintained its hold on the land and ensured...
Cheshire Country Houses
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England Arise! The General Election of 1945
Historian article
‘The past week will live in history for two things’, announced the Sunday Times of 29 July 1945, ‘first the return of a Labour majority to Parliament and the end of Churchill's great war Premiership.’ Most other newspapers concurred. The Daily Mirror, of 27 July, proclaimed that the 1945 general election...
England Arise! The General Election of 1945
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Saint Robert and the Deer
Article
It is almost a commonplace that there is an affinity between a holy man and the creatures of the wild. The archetype is St. Francis of Assisi but the phenomenon was well marked both before and after his time. I would like to consider briefly an episode in the life...
Saint Robert and the Deer
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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
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My Favourite History Place: Mandala House
Historian feature
Many myths surround David Livingstone and in this part of the world more myths about the man abound than perhaps anywhere else. We can only speculate on whether he fought off lions with his bare hands, shamed slave-traders into letting their slaves go with just a few words from the scriptures...
My Favourite History Place: Mandala House
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Tank development in the First World War
Historian article
The emergence of the tank as a further weapon of war is inextricably associated with Lincoln where various early models were developed.
By 1915 the Great War had gone just about as far as it could and for the first time, the way an entire war was fought was described...
Tank development in the First World War
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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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Stanley Baldwin's reputation
Historian article
Falsification of history is normally associated with dictatorships rather than liberal democracies. Yet tendentious accounts of the recent past are part of the armoury of all types of political debate. Such manipulation usually has only a limited and short-term influence, because it is neutralised by different political parties offering contending...
Stanley Baldwin's reputation
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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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The Urban Working Classes in England 1880-1914
Historian article
On reading the title of this article, any reader at all familiar with the social history of late Victorian and Edwardian England is likely to think of the revelations at the time of the extent of urban poverty. Two major enquiries, one into London poverty, and the other into poverty...
The Urban Working Classes in England 1880-1914
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Thomas Parkinson: the Hermit of Thirsk
Historian article
About the year 1430 the citizens of Thirsk decided that their ancient parish church of St. Mary was old-fashioned and unworthy of the developing town, so they decided to build a new one. As a result, over the next eighty years or so, they produced what Pevsner described as ‘without...
Thomas Parkinson: the Hermit of Thirsk
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How can there be a true history?
Historian article
"How can there be a true history, when we see no man living is able to write truly the history of the last week?" (Thomas Shadwell)
Indeed! Once when I had to give a talk in Spain, I found this quotation by looking up ‘history' in the Oxford English Dictionary....
How can there be a true history?
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The Value of Biography in History
Article
7 April 2000: Historical Association, Norton Medlicott Medal Lecture. President, fellow members, ladies and gentlemen. I am deeply conscious that having just received the Norton Medlicott Medal; which means so much to me, that I must try to live up to the honour itself and the traditions of the recipients....
The Value of Biography in History
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The 1650s
Historian article
The 1630s in England began effectively in 1629 with the abrupt dismissal of Charles I’s third parliament and ended in 1640 at the first meeting of what would become the Long Parliament. Similarly we may start the 1650s with the regicide of January 1649 and finish with the surprising return...
The 1650s
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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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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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Quixotically Generous...Economically Worthless'
Article
William Kenefick considers two views of the dockers and the dockland community in Britain in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 'Quixotically generous and economically worthless’! But what does this mean? How does this curious descriptor help us understand the docker or the waterside community? Indeed, does it tell us...
Quixotically Generous...Economically Worthless'
