History
Anything to do with History
Abbie
@Abbie -
over 1 year ago
Gifts for the Nation | History Today
Ben JonesFew contemporary philanthropists would consider giving money to ease the national debt. But in 1928, Winston Churchill – then the Chancellor of the Exchequer – announced an anonymous charitable gift of £500,000 to a new fund, set up to pay off the UK’s substantia...continued
8 minutes read
Jaydon
@Jaydon -
over 1 year ago
How did the Victorians Become a Reference Point for Joyless Prudery?
Anonymous group portrait, c.1866. Rijksmuseum.‘Lytton Strachey’s ‘Eminent Victorians’ did much to sow the seeds’Thomas Dixon, Professor of History at Queen Mary University of London and author of Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears (Oxford University Press, 2...continued
8 minutes read
Marie
@Marie -
about 1 year ago
Chaucer on Trial | History Today
It is not often the case that a medieval English poet makes headlines in the New York Times, or is a trending topic on Twitter. But this is what happened in October 2022 when two new legal documents were unveiled relating to the life of later medieval England’s most famou...continued
8 minutes read
Devin
@Devin -
over 1 year ago
Hong Kong and the Huguenots
Ben JonesAs the long shadow of China’s National Security Law fell over Hong Kong in June 2020 the ‘one country, two systems’ appeared to be dead in the water. First formulated by Deng Xiaoping in his negotiations with Margaret Thatcher’s government in the lead up to the D...continued
8 minutes read
Jeffrey
@Jeffrey -
over 3 years ago
Who is History’s Worst Political Adviser?
‘Many bristled at Nikephoros’ tactless behaviour’ Peter Frankopan, Professor of Global History at the University of Oxford History, as we know, does not repeat itself. It is simply a coincidence that in the Byzantine Empire in the second half of the 11th century an advis...continued
8 minutes read
Torey
@Torey -
over 3 years ago
What is History? | History Today
‘History is the study of people, actions, decisions, interactions and behaviours’ Francesca Morphakis, PhD Candidate in History at the University of Leeds History is narratives. From chaos comes order. We seek to understand the past by determining and ordering ‘facts’; an...continued
8 minutes read
Minnie
@Minnie -
over 4 years ago
Statues, Politics and The Past
What purpose do statues serve? This question came to the fore when former prime minister Theresa May announced plans in June 2019 for a memorial in London’s Waterloo station commemorating the arrival to Britain in 1948 of the first of the Windrush generation. The Windrush...continued
8 minutes read
Minnie
@Minnie -
11 months ago
Decline and Fall | History Today
Ben JonesWhen describing America or ‘the West’ more broadly, ‘decadence’ is often invoked. Certain factions in Western democracies fret that, as economic power shifts towards Asia, their once-powerful societies have been irrevocably diminished and are rife with inertia. M...continued
8 minutes read
Americo
@Americo -
over 4 years ago
Kazakhstan’s Nuclear Nightmare | History Today
Seventy years ago, an explosion in a far-flung corner of Soviet-ruled Kazakhstan set off an arms race that took the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. Four years earlier, the US had ended the Second World War by dropping atomic bombs on Japan. Joseph Stalin’s USSR ...continued
8 minutes read
Clarissa
@Clarissa -
over 3 years ago
Does Boom Always Follow Bust?
For this historian, the next boom feels a long way off Catherine Schenk, Professor of Economic and Social History at the University of Oxford The quick answer to this question is ‘no’, of course, since ‘always’ never happens in history. Ignoring that word, we can fall bac...continued
8 minutes read
Ariel
@Ariel -
over 2 years ago
The Lives of Napoleon | History Today
Two hundred years after his death, what more is there to say about Napoleon Bonaparte? He remains a perennially popular subject for works of history aimed at the general reader, whether conventional biographies or more specialised studies on aspects of his life, regime an...continued
8 minutes read
Casper
@Casper -
12 months ago
What Have Strikes Achieved? | History Today
‘Una huelga de obreros en Vizcaya (A strike of workers in Biscay)’, Vicente Cutanda, 1892. Museo del Prado/Wiki Commons.‘In Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, the women of Greece unite together in a sex-strike’Lynette Mitchell, Professor in Greek History and Politics at the Univer...continued
8 minutes read
Josiah
@Josiah -
over 3 years ago
What can History tell us about Epidemics?
‘Strategies to cope with plague have formed the basis for later policies’ John Henderson, Professor of Italian Renaissance History at Birkbeck, University of London and author of Florence Under Siege: Surviving Plague in an Early Modern City (Yale, 2019) News about the sp...continued
8 minutes read
Marie
@Marie -
over 1 year ago
When did the Medieval Period End?
‘The medieval persists’: stained glass depicting two minstrels c.1885, attributed to James Egan, a former employee of William Morris. Art Institute of Chicago.‘Humanist scholars certainly thought themselves to be living in a new age’Bridget Heal, Professor of Early Modern...continued
8 minutes read
Rowan
@Rowan -
almost 4 years ago
What is the Value of Economic History?
Economics is one of the reasons for the lacklustre reputation of economic history Rory Naismith, Lecturer in the History of England before the Norman Conquest, University of Cambridge There is a long-standing tendency to think of ‘the economy’ as a detached yet volatile f...continued
8 minutes read
Rahsaan
@Rahsaan -
over 3 years ago
Disraeli or Churchill? | History Today
In March 1846, at the height of the destructive debate over the repeal of the Corn Laws, the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, rounded on his chief tormentor, Benjamin Disraeli, and asked how it was that if, as Disraeli claimed, he so disapproved of the Government, he had ...continued
8 minutes read
Nestor
@Nestor -
over 3 years ago
Is the Story of ‘The Few’ More Myth Than Reality?
‘British industry outproduced German fighter output by a wide margin’ Richard Overy, Professor of History at the University of Exeter Embedded in British popular memory of the Second World War is the image of ‘the Few’ of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain. It i...continued
8 minutes read
Ericka
@Ericka -
over 1 year ago
Is Algeria Still Defined by its Liberation Struggle?
Soldiers of the National Liberation Army during the Algerian War of Independence, 1958. Museum of African Art (Belgrade)/Wiki Commons.‘The war gave rise to an anti-colonial hyper-memory: one where the fallen are a constant presence’Martin Evans, Professor of Modern Europe...continued
8 minutes read
Roger
@Roger -
almost 4 years ago
A Uighurs' History of China
Towards the end of 2018 reports began to emerge that China was building a widespread network of compounds in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. It was being used to detain hundreds of thousands of – some estimates suggested over a million – members of the Muslim Uighu...continued
8 minutes read
Alvah
@Alvah -
almost 4 years ago
A Uighurs’ History of China
Towards the end of 2018 reports began to emerge that China was building a widespread network of compounds in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. It was being used to detain hundreds of thousands of – some estimates suggested over a million – members of the Muslim Uighu...continued
8 minutes read
Maureen
@Maureen -
about 4 years ago
Is it the Duty of Historians to Correct National Mythologies?
History is, to some extent, inescapably nationalist Colin Kidd, Professor of History, University of St Andrews Historians as an academic profession get by without a Hippocratic Oath. There are no prescribed duties. But various market-like mechanisms serve to keep us hones...continued
8 minutes read
Hannah
@Hannah -
almost 4 years ago
Has Monarchy Had its Day?
With everything changing, what has stayed the same? Kate Maltby, critic, columnist and final year PhD student in the English Department at University College London. ‘For things to stay as they are, everything must change’: the maxim of the aristocrat Tancredi in Lampedus...continued
8 minutes read
Izaiah
@Izaiah -
almost 4 years ago
Why is the Public so Obsessed with the Nazis?
‘The level of fascination leaves many historians scratching their heads’ Roger Moorhouse, Author of First to Fight: the Polish War 1939 (Bodley Head, 2019) The popular obsession with Hitler and the Nazis is at once wholly understandable and rather baffling. On one level...continued
8 minutes read
Kraig
@Kraig -
almost 4 years ago
Why is the Public So Obsessed with the Nazis?
‘The level of fascination leaves many historians scratching their heads’ Roger Moorhouse, Author of First to Fight: the Polish War 1939 (Bodley Head, 2019) The popular obsession with Hitler and the Nazis is at once wholly understandable and rather baffling. On one level...continued
8 minutes read
Ezequiel
@Ezequiel -
about 1 year ago
Are ‘Dark Ages’ Inevitable? | History Today
Roundhouse reconstruction at Emain Macha (Navan Fort) near Armagh. Photographed in 2010. Wiki Commons/Notafly.‘The Bronze Age came to a crashing halt around 1200 BC, thanks to a “systems collapse”’James I. Porter, Author of Homer: The Very Idea (University of Chicago Pres...continued
8 minutes read