History
Anything to do with History
Alexzander @Alexzander - over 3 years ago
Father Figure | History Today
Beyond the Nativity there is little in the Bible about Christ’s childhood. In St Luke’s Gospel there is an account of the 12-year-old’s visit to a temple for Passover, where he debated with ‘doctors’, and nothing at all in Mark and John. The visit to the temple also marks...continued
3 minutes read
Ericka @Ericka - over 2 years ago
On the Spot: Gordon Campbell
Why are you a historian of culture?It allows me to range freely through the history of art, literature, gardens, religion and, most recently, the Norse.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That it is a means to understand the present. What book in your...continued
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Rahsaan @Rahsaan - over 2 years ago
On the Spot: Nandini Das
Why are you a historian of early modern travel?I am intrigued by how we articulate what is familiar and what is strange, who belongs and who does not.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That no historical record is an unmediated window into the past.W...continued
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Oren @Oren - almost 3 years ago
On the Spot: Srinath Raghavan
Why are you a historian of modern South Asia?Because South Asia provides an extraordinary window on the making of the modern world.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That history doesn’t teach any lessons – only historians do. Which history book has ...continued
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Jeffrey @Jeffrey - over 3 years ago
On the Spot: Camilla Townsend
Why are you a historian of Native America?When I began to read the histories that the 16th-century Nahuas (or Aztecs) wrote, I felt I had been admitted to a great chamber of knowledge which had been buried for far too long. What’s the most important lesson history has tau...continued
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Juliet @Juliet - about 2 years ago
On the Spot: Sanjay Subrahmanyam
Why are you a historian of the early modern world?It’s distant, yet close enough; familiar, yet not overly so.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? To be sceptical of facile explanations based on prejudice or sanctimony.Which history book has had greate...continued
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Webster @Webster - over 2 years ago
On the Spot: Margo Neale
Why are you a historian and curator of Indigenous Australian art?Indigenous history and art are interchangeable. Curating is a powerful form of history-telling.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That the division between past, present and future is a...continued
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Raoul @Raoul - over 2 years ago
On the Spot: Paul Lay
Why are you a historian of early modern Britain?It’s the crucible in which modern Britain and subsequently much of the world was formed. It remains fascinating both on its own terms and for its contemporary resonances.What’s the most important lesson history has taught yo...continued
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Wilmer @Wilmer - about 2 years ago
On the Spot: David Hendy
Why are you a media historian?I studied medieval history, then worked in current affairs at the BBC. Media history brings my two careers together.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? We can’t say what’s changed unless we know what went before.Which his...continued
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Izaiah @Izaiah - almost 3 years ago
On the Spot: Ruth Scurr
Why are you a historian of the early modern period?I am an early modernist when the French Revolution is included in that period.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That timing is everything. Which history book has had greatest influence on you?Robert...continued
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Rose @Rose - about 3 years ago
On the Spot: Katja Hoyer
Why are you a historian of Germany?I am a confused German trying to make sense of my country’s past and its place in Europe and the world.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? Human nature always remains the same. Which history book has had greatest inf...continued
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Patrick @Patrick - almost 3 years ago
On the Spot: Eleanor Robson
Why are you a historian of the ancient Middle East?I wanted to start at the beginning of the history of mathematics and numeracy. Thirty years later, I’m still not done with cuneiform culture.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That ‘the past is now’...continued
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Zackery @Zackery - about 2 years ago
On the Spot: Marjoleine Kars
Why are you a historian of early America?As an immigrant, I wanted to understand the roots of my adopted country.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That nothing ever repeats itself.Which history book has had greatest influence on you?The World Turned...continued
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Torey @Torey - over 2 years ago
On the Spot: Barry Cunliffe
Why are you an archaeologist? Because from an early age I couldn’t conceive of life without being an archaeologist.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That humans are amazingly adaptable. Which history book has had greatest influence on you?Grahame Cl...continued
2 minutes read
Delia @Delia - almost 3 years ago
Ulysses and the Sirens | History Today
A passage from book 12 of The Odyssey, in Emily Wilson’s acclaimed translation of Homer’s epic, sees the hero Odysseus, known in Latin as Ulysses, warn his men of an impending challenge:She [Circe] said we must avoid the voices of the otherworldy Sirens; steer past their ...continued
3 minutes read
Angus @Angus - about 3 years ago
On the Spot: Shadi Bartsch
Why are you a Classicist?I want to understand the conceptual roots of the way I think.What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That when it repeats itself, no one notices. Which history book has had greatest influence on you?A History of Science in World C...continued
2 minutes read
Zackery @Zackery - over 3 years ago
On the Spot: Susan-Mary Grant
Why are you a historian of the United States?It seemed fresh and exciting when I was an undergraduate, and the lecturers at Edinburgh, especially George Shepperson, were very inspiring. What’s the most important lesson history has taught you? That there’s always someone m...continued
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Colin @Colin - about 3 years ago
Venus and Mars | History Today
Sir William Boxall, Director of the National Gallery in London, was accompanied by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, to a sale at Christie’s auction house in June 1874. The collection of the dealer Alexander Barker was up for sale and Disraeli wanted to ...continued
3 minutes read
Nestor @Nestor - over 4 years ago
Orpheus and Eurydice | History Today
Orpheus and Eurydice, hand in hand, walk away from the fiery underworld and its deities, Pluto and Proserpine. Orpheus, singer, musician and poet, carrying a lyre on his shoulder, had recently married Eurydice, but on the day of their wedding, ‘in the very bloom of her li...continued
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Muriel @Muriel - about 1 month ago
The Birth of Ovid | History Today
Ovid was with a friend on Elba in the autumn of eight AD when the crisis hit. A summons arrived for him from the emperor, Augustus. Were the rumours true, his friend asked. Ovid equivocated – half confessing, half denying.Two millennia later, we still don’t know what Ovid...continued
2 minutes read
Delia @Delia - 25 days ago
The Death of Little Jack the Boy Missionary
‘What more pleasing to a Christian parent whose heart yearns over his children [than] to see them thus engaged in the best of all causes, even the extension of the Redeemer’s kingdom’, wrote Joseph Blake in The Day of Small Things, his 1849 tract promoting missionary zeal...continued
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Raoul @Raoul - over 3 years ago
Laocoön | History Today
‘Don’t trust the horse, my people. Even when they bring gifts, I fear the Greeks.’These are among the most famous lines of the classical world, uttered by Laocoön, the Trojan priest of Poseidon (the Roman god Neptune), in the second book of Virgil’s Aeneid, written in the...continued
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Patrick @Patrick - almost 3 years ago
A Tyrant goes on Trial
The idea that leaders and their functionaries might be held to account did not begin with the Nuremberg Trials that followed the Second World War. Precedents cited in the trials themselves included the Imperial Diet at Regensburg, which followed Frederick II’s invasion of...continued
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Madalyn @Madalyn - almost 5 years ago
The Death of Caesar | History Today
A huddle of conspirators walks away from the lifeless, bloodied body of Julius Caesar, having stabbed the great Roman general and statesman 23 times on the Ides, or 15th, of March, 44 BC.Caesar had recently been declared dictator perpetuo by a Senate fearful of its rumour...continued
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Elliott @Elliott - over 2 years ago
A Racist Forgery is Revealed
Jewish people have been blamed for everything from the Black Death to the Russian Revolution. But rarely has such race hate found more notorious expression than in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The work purports to be the verbatim transcript of speeches made by a s...continued
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