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Hiding in plain sight: an eighteenth-century portrait of an Inca leader
Historian article
In this article, Emily C. Floyd explores a rare eighteenth-century self-commissioned engraved portrait of an elite Indigenous man in colonial Lima. By comparing this unassuming image with a more overtly Inca portrait, the article reveals how Indigenous leaders navigated identity, loyalty, and colonial restrictions, using portraiture to assert agency in...
Hiding in plain sight: an eighteenth-century portrait of an Inca leader
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Losing sight of the bigger picture: public policy and the visual arts
Historian article
From the 1940s to the late twentieth century, the visual arts in England were promoted and encouraged in a variety of ways by politicians and other policymakers, at both national and local level. Recent decades have seen a marginalisation of the arts, particularly in education. In this article Pauline Wood...
Losing sight of the bigger picture: public policy and the visual arts
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‘My sweet San Gimignano’: a Tuscan commune in the middle ages
Historian article
The northern Italian town of San Gimignano is famous for its high-rise medieval towers. The size of these fortified buildings might lead to the assumption that the town was a place of constant conflict and discord. Here John Law uses a wide variety of evidence to argue that San Gimignano...
‘My sweet San Gimignano’: a Tuscan commune in the middle ages
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Vikings in the East: from Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin
Historian feature
Martyn Whittock explores the lesser-known world of the Vikings who travelled east, forging the early state of Kyivan Rus and leaving a legacy still debated in Russia and Ukraine today. From silver routes and sagas to modern political claims, this article explores how their story and origins remain as dramatic...
Vikings in the East: from Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin
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Out and About: Leavesden Country Park
Historian feature
Concerns about demobilised soldiers after the Second World War were widespread, reflecting both the practical challenges faced by returning servicemen and broader anxieties about their reintegration into civilian life. In this article, Helen George explores how a temporary education facility in Hertfordshire helped prepare demobilised Canadian soldiers for higher education...
Out and About: Leavesden Country Park
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Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
Historian feature
In this article, Rob Pritchard reflects on his long-standing engagement with the Black Country Living Museum, exploring how visits to this ‘living history’ site transformed his approach to teaching history...
Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
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Real Lives: Eduard Friedrich Kärger
Historian feature
In this article, Alex van der Ham and Ling-Hua Huang explain how a casual browse through a nineteenth century journal led to an intriguing research journey into the author of a scientific dissertation. Here they discovered interesting insights into Prussian society in the years leading to the Unification of Germany,...
Real Lives: Eduard Friedrich Kärger
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In conversation with Henrike Lähnemann
Historian feature
In The Life of Nuns: love, politics, and religion in medieval German convents (Open Book Publishers, 2024), Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber explore female religious communities from the late medieval and early Reformation-era in northern Germany, revealing them to be vibrant centres of learning, administration, devotion, friendship, and negotiation. The book challenges...
In conversation with Henrike Lähnemann
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Doing history: A historian in the Round Tower
Historian feature
In this article Michael McLaughlin explains how he felt quite intimidated initially at the prospect of visiting the Royal Archives in the ‘fortress’ of Windsor Castle. However his research there proved to be both enjoyable and productive, as he discovered fascinating insights into the royal visit to Plymouth at the...
Doing history: A historian in the Round Tower
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The Historian 169: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 169: Visual Arts
Long before the development of written language, human societies communicated through images. From prehistoric cave paintings to medieval manuscripts, political cartoons and modern film. The visual arts have long provided a powerful means of recording, interpreting, and sharing human experience. For historians, such material...
The Historian 169: Out now
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Recorded webinar: Holocaust Landscapes (Teach Environmental Histories Network)
Teach Environmental Histories Network meeting, January 2026
We all know that historical events take place somewhere, but how important is that somewhere - and especially its materiality - in enabling or hindering or shaping those events? That is a question that historian Tim Cole has been asking vis-a-vis the Holocaust.
In this meeting of the Teach Environmental...
Recorded webinar: Holocaust Landscapes (Teach Environmental Histories Network)
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Nurturing aspirations for Oxbridge
Teaching History article
An exploration of the impact of university preparation classes on sixth-form historians
Frustrated by the low numbers of students from her comprehensive state school who expressed any interest in applying to Oxford or Cambridge to study history, Lucy Hemsley set out to explore ways in which she might both inspire...
Nurturing aspirations for Oxbridge
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On-demand webinar: Supporting the whole pupil: building confidence and inclusion in GCSE history
Webinar series: Making GCSE history accessible: supporting all learners at Key Stage 4
Webinar series: Making GCSE history accessible: supporting all learners at Key Stage 4
Session 3: Supporting the whole pupil: building confidence and inclusion in GCSE history
Presenter: Gemma Hargraves
This session explores some of the hidden barriers faced by neurodivergent pupils in the history classroom, including anxiety and low self-confidence....
On-demand webinar: Supporting the whole pupil: building confidence and inclusion in GCSE history
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Cunning Plan 165: Helping lower-attaining students
Teaching History feature
My GCSE students were about to embark on their controlled assessment, which asked them to weigh up conflicting views on the British military’s contribution to the D-Day landings. Students were asked to engage with a range of historians’ views and textbooks as well as some contemporary source material to assess...
Cunning Plan 165: Helping lower-attaining students
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On-demand webinar: Making it stick: enhancing memory retention for pupils with SEND in GCSE history
Webinar series: Making GCSE history accessible: supporting all learners at Key Stage 4
Webinar series: Making GCSE history accessible: supporting all learners at Key Stage 4
Session 2: Making it stick: enhancing memory retention for pupils with SEND in GCSE history
Presenter: Dale Banham
This session explores how to help SEND learners retain historical knowledge by applying research-informed strategies that reduce cognitive overload...
On-demand webinar: Making it stick: enhancing memory retention for pupils with SEND in GCSE history
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On-demand webinar: Literacy for historical thinking: supporting reading and writing at GCSE history
Webinar series: Making GCSE history accessible: supporting all learners at Key Stage 4
Webinar series: Making GCSE history accessible: supporting all learners at Key Stage 4
Session 1: Literacy for historical thinking: supporting reading and writing at GCSE history
Presenter: Catherine Priggs
This session explores the essential literacy skills required to engage effectively with history at Key Stage 4. Participants will examine the unique...
On-demand webinar: Literacy for historical thinking: supporting reading and writing at GCSE history
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'Victims of history': Challenging students’ perceptions of women in history
Teaching History article
As postgraduate historians with teaching responsibilities at the University of York, Bridget Lockyer and Abigail Tazzyman were concerned to tackle some of the challenges reported by their students who had generally only encountered women’s history in a disconnected way through stand-alone topics or modules. Their response was to create a...
'Victims of history': Challenging students’ perceptions of women in history
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On-demand webinar: Immersive history, AI, and the making/unmaking of student understanding
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Session 5: Immersive history, AI, and the making/unmaking of student understandingPresenter: Ailsa Fidler and Simon Lea
AI-driven immersive history is entering our classrooms in ways previously unimaginable. Through interactive simulations, image and video generation and storytelling, students will be able to explore historical events and...
On-demand webinar: Immersive history, AI, and the making/unmaking of student understanding
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On-demand webinar: AI Black Box: responsible use for primary teachers
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Session 4: AI Black Box: responsible use for primary teachersPresenter: Dr Vanessa Cui, Dr Louise Wheatcroft, Dr Jordan Bird
Generative AI offers incredible potential for resource creation for teachers, but the current dominant generative AI tools' core function is to be an agreeable, helpful assistant....
On-demand webinar: AI Black Box: responsible use for primary teachers
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On-demand webinar: How might we effectively use AI in primary history?
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Session 3: How might we effectively use AI in primary history?Presenter: Stuart Tiffany
In this session, Stuart will explore how AI can be beneficial in tackling some of the challenges that face primary history teachers in a time of continued curriculum emphasis. Alongside this, he will...
On-demand webinar: How might we effectively use AI in primary history?
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On-demand webinar: AI and Technology: enhancing primary history
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Webinar series: AI in primary history
Session 2: AI and Technology: enhancing primary historyPresenter: Chris Goodall, Beth Humphrey, Ryan Reece Moor, Zehra Fagan
Discover how Bourne Education Trust's comprehensive digital strategy is transforming history education through thoughtful AI integration. This webinar showcases Bourne’s Trust-wide approach to digital innovation, demonstrating how...
On-demand webinar: AI and Technology: enhancing primary history
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The International Journal Volume 13, Number 2
IJHLTR
Editorial pp 3 Editorial Review pp 4–13
Australia pp 14–15 Review of: R. G. Collingwood: A Research Companion, James Connelly, Peter Johnson and Stephen Leach, London: Bloomsbury, Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Australian National University
Britain pp 16–22 The Relevance Of George Orwell: Reflections On The Teaching And Learning Of History In A...
The International Journal Volume 13, Number 2
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The Historian 169: Visual Arts
The magazine of the Historical Association
4 Ask The Historian and Letters
5 Editorial (Read article)
6 To see the witch: understanding fear, accusation, and brutality during the European witch craze through visual art – Natasha Brockman (Read article)
12 The Lady and the Unicorn: unravelling the symbolic threads of sixteenth-century tapestries – Damien Dessane (Read...
The Historian 169: Visual Arts
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How foundational concepts, supporting concepts and concrete examples can help untangle the past at Key Stage 3
Teaching History article
A central organising principle of any curriculum is the substantive concepts that underpin it. They provide a secure structure and enable students to develop deep understanding through multiple encounters with essential abstract ideas that are given concrete form in different historical contexts. Identifying the different levels or tiers to which different...
How foundational concepts, supporting concepts and concrete examples can help untangle the past at Key Stage 3
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Making substantive concepts (do the) work
Teaching History article
Several years back, Alistair Dickins and Tommy-James Alexander realised they wanted to incorporate explicit consideration of substantive concepts into their Key Stage 3 teaching, to enable students to make sense of and order information about the past and to offer students a usable language that would support their historical reasoning. In reality,...
Making substantive concepts (do the) work
