Society

How people group together, organise their rules and systems are all part of what create a society. In this section articles examine the nature of society how it interacts with other themes of culture, power, etc. and how societies have developed and changed over time. The structures of the ancient world are explored as are the complex feudal systems and the varied societies of Empire and modernity.

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  • The Suffragette Movement

    Podcast

    Professor June Hannam of the University of the West of England looks at the key forces that led to women acheiving the vote in the early 20th century.

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  • The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

    Podcast

    In this podcast Professor Gad Heuman of the University of Warwick examines the origins of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the triangular trade, race, slave society and the changing interpretations of the abolition of the slave trade. (See also podcast The business of slavery: Economic history in the classroom from the HA's Britain and...

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  • The US LGBTQ+ Movement from the 1990s

    Podcast

    In this podcast Joshua Hollands of University College London looks at the history of the US LGBTQ+ movement from the early 1990s to the present.

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  • The Welsh Marches

    Podcast

    The terms "Welsh March" and "the March of Wales" (in Medieval Latin Marchia Walliae) were originally used in the Middle Ages to denote the territory/marches between England and the Principality of Wales, in which Marcher lords had specific rights, exercised to some extent independently of the king of England. In...

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  • UK 1945-64 - Post War Consensus and the Welfare State

    Podcast

    In this podcast Professor Keith Laybourn of the University of Huddersfield looks at the period 1945-64. What were the key forces that led to the welfare state and the post war consensuses? To what extent did this consensus transform the lives of British people?

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  • UK 1964-79 - Domestic problems under the Labour and Conservative Governments

    Podcast

    In this podcast Professor Keith Laybourn of the University of Huddersfield discusses the key reasons for the growing domestic problems under the Labour and Conservative Governments 1964-79 and looks at the effectiveness of their response.

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  • UK Women's Movement: How did Women achieve the Vote?

    Podcast

    In this podcast Professor June Hannam of the University of the West of England looks at the key forces that led to women achiving the vote in the early 20th century.

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  • Virtual Branch Recording: Humans

    Article

    In this Virtual Branch talk, Dr Alvin Finkel challenges claims that egalitarian, peaceful societies disappeared with the founding of agriculture or with the founding of state-level social organisation.  Different authors have suggested that early human society was essentially egalitarian in nature, with hierarchies only later becoming common. The point at which...

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  • Virtual Branch Recording: Locating and Mapping the Jews of Medieval Lincoln

    Article

    As part of a project to identify and write biographies of all of the Jews of the medieval Lincoln Jewry, Natasha Jenman, Luka Liu, and Josh Outhwaite have been working on records of Jewish property ownership in the city across the thirteenth century. This allows them to identify those individuals who will be...

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  • Virtual Branch Recording: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World

    Article

    This talk explored the struggle for liberation from the perspective of the enslaved, wherever possible in their own words. Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh shines a light on the lives of revolutionaries like Toussaint Louverture, José Antonio Aponte, Nat Turner, and the pregnant rebel Solitude; touching on the stories of the freed...

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  • Virtual Branch Recording: Shylock's Venice

    Article

    This is the story of the Venice Ghetto, the corner of the city where Jews were exiled; free to walk the streets by day, locked behind gates and walls at night. Yet, gates and walls notwithstanding, from its establishment in 1516 until the fall of Venice in 1798, the ghetto...

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  • Virtual Branch Recording: The cultural world of Elizabethan England

    Article

    In this Virtual Branch talk Professor Emma Smith provides a preview of her current research, which explores the lives and cultural undercurrents of Elizabethan England. What was influencing their cultural tastes and how much of it was new, or had it all been seen before? Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare...

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  • Virtual Branch Recording: Vagabonds versus the Mendicity Society

    Article

    Red Lion Square was long one of London's most genteel addresses, home to nobles, scholars, and professionals. But on 25 March 1818, one house on the south side opened its doors to quite another class of person, as the Mendicity Society began its business. Set up to solve the growing...

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  • Virtual Branch: Birds and British History

    Article

    In his recent book The Cuckoo's Lea Michael J Warren provides a exploration of how birds are entwined with British history, particularly in our place names.  Join us for an exclusive Q&A with the author to weave together literature, history and ornithology and discover a fascinating heritage that matters deeply now when so...

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  • Votes for Women

    Podcast

    In this series of videos, produced by Royal Holloway, University of London, staff and students examine the campaign for women’s suffrage in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This includes videos looking at why the suffrage campaign started in the 1860s; introductions to the main suffrage organisations, their leaders and...

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  • Witchcraft, Werewolves and Magic in European History: on-demand short course

    Multipage Article

    This self-guided short course provides an introduction to European witchcraft history from the fifteenth century to the present. Using a range of primary sources, the course explores important themes and questions relating to witchcraft history, examining how witchcraft has been imagined and understood at different times and in different places, and why...

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  • Women and the Family in Ancient Greece and Rome

    Podcast

    In this podcast Dr Richard Hawley of Royal Holloway, University of London, looks at women and the family in Ancient Greece and Rome.

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  • Women's Voices in Ancient Greece & Rome

    Podcast

    In this podcast Dr Richard Hawley of Royal Holloway, University of London discusses women writers in Ancient Greece & Rome such as Sappho.

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  • Workers’ Rights and Trade Unions

    Podcast

    In this series of videos, produced by Royal Holloway, University of London, staff and students look at the development of trade unionism and workers’ rights in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The playlist includes videos examining the Tolpuddle Martyrs, New Unionism, the London Dock Strike and the Match Girls’ Strike...

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