Your branch from home

The HA Virtual Branch is a great way to keep your history up-to-date, whether you are working or relaxing, all from the comfort of your home. The branch is available to everybody, and recordings of the talks are made available online after the event for HA members.

*LIVE - Tuesday 8 June, 7.30pm

Marc Morris on The Anglo-Saxons

Best-selling author and historian Marc Morris will be talking about his new book The Anglo-Saxons: a history of the beginnings of England. Shining a light on Britain’s Dark Ages, Morris traces six centuries of Anglo-Saxon dominance and the transformative effect figures such as King Offa, Alfred the Great and Edward the Confessor wrought on these isles.

Dr Marc Morris is a historian who specializes in the Middle Ages. He studied and taught at the universities of London and Oxford and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Book here

*LIVE - Monday 5 July, 7.30pm

Toby Green on A Fistful of Shells

Just us in conversation with Dr Toby Green on his acclaimed book 'A Fistful of Shells'. Shortlisted for the 2020 Wolfson Prize and winner of the 2019 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, the book explores West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution, and is one the most important publications on a subject that is still little known to many Europeans despite the interweaving of European and African histories.  

Toby Green is a British historian who is a Professor of Precolonial and Lusophone African History and Culture at Kings College London. In addition to his work on African history he has also written on the Spanish Inquisition. 

Booking coming soon

*LIVE - Wednesday 4 August, 7.30pm

Calum E. Douglas on The Secret Horse Power Race: Western Front fighter engine development

Calum E. Douglas will join us in conversation about his book 'The Secret Horse Power Race' about World War 2 aviation engine development in Europe. His book explores the fight to be the best engineers during wartime and how that was crucial to winning the technology battle that could help to dominate the skies. Following six years of research and writing, the book has been a huge success amongst those with an interest in aviation and technological history, military historians and anyone keen to know how the conflicts of the twentieth century have made huge differences to all our lives. In this talk we will discuss the writing of the book and some of the key themes that it addresses.  

Calum E Douglas is a trained mechanical engineer specialising in piston engine design and development who is just as interested in how technology developed and impacted on history as he is in the machines themselves. 

Booking coming soon

Past lecture recordings

If you missed our Virtual Branch talks from earlier this year, recordings of a number of the talks are available here:

• Michael Wood on The Making of Early England 500-1066
• Peter Mandler on The Origins of Mass Society: Speech, Sex and Drink in Urbanising Britain, 1780-1870
• Jo Fox on Reimagining the Blitz Spirit: the mobilisation of World War II propaganda in our own times
• Anne Curry on Henry V – Henry the conqueror
• Katja Hoyer on Weltkrieg: the German home front during World War I 
• Rana Mitter on China's good war: how World War II is shaping a new nationalism 
• Jonathan Phillips on The life and legend of Sultan Saladin
• Stephen Bourne on Writing Black British histories
• Clare Kennan on Building St James's Spire: Louth's Guilds and Popular Piety in the Later Middle Ages 
• Martyn Whittock on Mayflower Lives: building a New Jerusalem in the New World (coming soon)

Local HA Branches at the Virtual Branch

The HA has over 45 local branches around the country. Some of these have been able to return to their venues for their monthly talks around lockdown. Others have decided to make their branch programmes online via Zoom – this provides a wonderful opportunity for you to see some of the great lectures that occur across the country as part of the HA. We will be featuring some of those Zoom lectures delivered by the branches here. Check in regularly for further information or view our branch calendar for full listings.

About the HA Virtual Branch talks

Your HA virtual branch is open to all – whether you are a member or not; for general interest, teachers and students alike. Some of the talks are pre-recorded, and others allow you the opportunity to listen live and pitch your questions to the historian presenting. This page will be updated as new talks are agreed.

If you're a teacher don't forget that we will also continue to run our regular calendar of CPD webinars - view the secondary webinar calendar here and the primary calendar here.