History

Anything to do with History

292890d964de1c8eba1a56fae0ed91c0 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
6232f8a636fcadbbec0b89d4f6ded6e2 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
2 minutes read
Bbe6309a1d067c75a83f525952377ae7 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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1adaf62f6727e453ef8e84f05a069975 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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1f7b605070774dac8bb3c859143de9d2 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
3 minutes read
70753e5e348bf454161ee0bcc63fed8d 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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B4a2c9b63fd68a080a47d2a35293e167 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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769b45cbbba62f6d3aa67bb11e7a293f 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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Ed258c85465a50dee9e6425ecf24849d 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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C83c832ac4865208bba7331dd2976162 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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7094e9deddcf03241ed9894017ba09bc 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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B32a14d6694cf7df7a187f69ad01ace5 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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192059156a7075f96be3d979645bdbcc 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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498be12662c1d913d0cbee6108a66520 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
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Ac7d6ae4836b778c0e45d9f73deed0cb 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
E5a600388a4be6ed5b515081737d8445 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
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192059156a7075f96be3d979645bdbcc 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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34392094b518c79e322481ceb0004cbf 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
24f317f89bef5f8cefa430eec1cd2f6d 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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725ac8c62bcc32f06195cf20b372a31a 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
Ac7d6ae4836b778c0e45d9f73deed0cb 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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769b45cbbba62f6d3aa67bb11e7a293f 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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B32a14d6694cf7df7a187f69ad01ace5 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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C1e15b7459468dc79542fc656b7a9fa2 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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A6c0c46e61817f7ae594dd513e06b21d 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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