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.

Upcoming talks 

* LIVE - Wednesday 14 September, 7.30pm

Churchill's Great Game: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War with Professor Richard Toye

Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University of Exeter. He is a specialist in the history of rhetoric and is the author of numerous articles and several books, including Rhetoric: A Very Short Introduction and The Roar of the Lion: The Untold Story of Churchill’s World War II Speeches. His book Winston Churchill: A Life in the News was published in 2020. 

In his talk Richard will explore Churchill’s response to the USSR and how his actions during the early Cold War years intersected with his views of traditional Anglo-Russian tensions and the legacy of the ‘Great Game’.

Book here 
 

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: The Making of Early England 500-1066
• Peter Mandler: The Origins of Mass Society: Speech, Sex and Drink in Urbanising Britain, 1780-1870
• Jo Fox: Reimagining the Blitz Spirit: the mobilisation of World War II propaganda in our own times
• Anne Curry: Henry V – Henry the conqueror
• Katja Hoyer: Weltkrieg: the German home front during World War I 
• Rana Mitter: China's good war: how World War II is shaping a new nationalism 
• Jonathan Phillips: The life and legend of Sultan Saladin
• Stephen Bourne: Writing Black British histories
• Clare Kennan: Building St James's Spire: Louth's Guilds and Popular Piety in the Later Middle Ages 
• Martyn Whittock: Mayflower Lives: building a New Jerusalem in the New World
• Meet the author: Marc Morris on the Anglo-Saxons
• Toby Green: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution
• Robert Pike: Silent Village: Life and Death in Occupied France
• Karin Friedrich: The Partitions of Poland, their Repercussions for German-Polish Relations and their Legacy
• Robert Sackville-West: The Searchers: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War
  
• Anna Cusack: What a strange place to be buried: Unique burial locations in London, c. 1600-1800
• Paula Kitching: Why does the massacre of the Armenians in the First World War still get overlooked?
• Marcus Collins: “The Talk Should Not Be Broadcast”: Homosexuality and the BBC before 1967
• Bob Morris: Why has monarchy survived in Europe?
• Dean Irwin: A Jewish divorce case in medieval England
• Judith Herrin on Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
• Dr Nicola Clark on Seen but not heard? The ladies-in-waiting who served the six wives of Henry VIII (coming in late August)

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. 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. Check 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.