-
In conversation with Henrike Lähnemann
Historian feature
In The Life of Nuns: love, politics, and religion in medieval German convents (Open Book Publishers, 2024), Henrike Lähnemann and Eva Schlotheuber explore female religious communities from the late medieval and early Reformation-era in northern Germany, revealing them to be vibrant centres of learning, administration, devotion, friendship, and negotiation. The book challenges...
In conversation with Henrike Lähnemann
-
Doing history: A historian in the Round Tower
Historian feature
In this article Michael McLaughlin explains how he felt quite intimidated initially at the prospect of visiting the Royal Archives in the ‘fortress’ of Windsor Castle. However his research there proved to be both enjoyable and productive, as he discovered fascinating insights into the royal visit to Plymouth at the...
Doing history: A historian in the Round Tower
-
An interview with Professor James Daybell
Article
We are delighted to announce that the new President of the HA from this summer will be Professor James Daybell of Plymouth University. James has a long history as an historian of the Early modern period but has also written extensively on other areas of history and related subjects. He...
An interview with Professor James Daybell
-
The Historian 169: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 169: Visual Arts
Long before the development of written language, human societies communicated through images. From prehistoric cave paintings to medieval manuscripts, political cartoons and modern film. The visual arts have long provided a powerful means of recording, interpreting, and sharing human experience. For historians, such material...
The Historian 169: Out now
-
The Historian 169: Visual Arts
The magazine of the Historical Association
4 Ask The Historian and Letters
5 Editorial (Read article)
6 To see the witch: understanding fear, accusation, and brutality during the European witch craze through visual art – Natasha Brockman (Read article)
12 The Lady and the Unicorn: unravelling the symbolic threads of sixteenth-century tapestries – Damien Dessane (Read...
The Historian 169: Visual Arts
-
Using financial records to gain insights into medieval society
Historian article
While conceding that medieval accounting and tax records can appear to be dull at first sight, Alisdair Dobie demonstrates here how they can provide fascinating insights into many aspects of life at the time. Not only do these records teach historians about economic and financial affairs: they also enhance our...
Using financial records to gain insights into medieval society
-
Female protagonists in early East India Company history
Historian article
Traditional histories of the East India Company have had a focus on the largely male characters who were involved as merchants, politicians and soldiers. Here Karin Doull considers the significance of the women who were part of the company’s story, discussing some of the issues encountered in researching and retelling...
Female protagonists in early East India Company history
-
The success of the Salford General Strike of 1911
Historian article
As we approach the centenary of Britain’s only national general strike, this article by Steve Illingworth tells the story of a successful local sympathetic strike in Salford in 1911. He analyses the reasons for the success of the Salford workers and considers why this kind of concerted industrial action could...
The success of the Salford General Strike of 1911
-
Eastern Nigeria market women and European businesses in colonial Nigeria 1900–29
Historian article
In this article Folusho Alabi reveals a relatively unknown story from the history of the British Empire. She analyses the issues and strategic manoeuvres in an ongoing struggle between Nigerian market women and the British colonial authorities in the early twentieth century. Despite an innate imbalance of power in this struggle,...
Eastern Nigeria market women and European businesses in colonial Nigeria 1900–29
-
Making and breaking Britain’s national energy order
Historian article
British history flows through energy. Changes to fuel sources, technologies, workplace organisation and power along with government policy and ownership have been defining turning points in British economic history. In this article Ewan Gibbs traces the making, development and subsequent breaking of a national British energy order across the second half of...
Making and breaking Britain’s national energy order
-
Castle of Convergence: the Muslim settlement of Lucera
Historian article
The later medieval period can often be seen as a time of bitter ideological and military conflict between Christians and Muslims. In this article Paola Laviola tells the story of the southern Italian city of Lucera, where occasional religious division was interspersed with periods of toleration between faiths that allowed...
Castle of Convergence: the Muslim settlement of Lucera
-
Kangxi and Louis XIV
Historian article
Recently the French and Chinese governments have joined together in a nostalgic reflection on cultural interactions between King Louis XIV and Emperor Kangxi in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. As Sean Heath explains here, these modern reflections are particularly interesting for an aspect of the relationship which they...
Kangxi and Louis XIV
-
Out and About: Bedfordshire’s airship memory
Historian feature
This article explores the Cardington airship hangars in Bedfordshire as reminders of Britain’s ambitious but short-lived airship programme. Built during the First World War, Cardington became central to the 1924 Imperial Airship Scheme and the construction of the R-100 and R-101. Celebrated as symbols of technological optimism, the programme ended...
Out and About: Bedfordshire’s airship memory
-
Real Lives: Alexander Stewart
Historian feature
Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. If you have any people that you think might also fit this category and would like to write about them, please do contact: martin.hoare@history.org.uk
Alexander Stewart’s life combined hardship, resilience and moral conviction....
Real Lives: Alexander Stewart
-
Doing history: Remembering the Wars of the Roses
Historian feature
This article examines how the Wars of the Roses have been remembered through memorials and presents the Battlefields Trust’s Wars of the Roses Memorial Database Project, launched in 2023. The open-access, crowd-sourced database maps monuments, plaques, battlefield markers and local commemorations linked to the conflicts. David Grummitt shows that remembrance...
Doing history: Remembering the Wars of the Roses
-
In conversation with Ayoush Lazikani
Historian feature
Ayoush Lazikani’s The Medieval Moon follows the moon between roughly 700 and 1600, tracing how it became a meeting-place for prophecy, medicine, devotion, and art across a globally conceived Middle Ages. Carolin Gluchowski met with Ayoush Lazikani to explore the many moons of the Middle Ages...
In conversation with Ayoush Lazikani
-
The Historian 168: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 168: Economic History
It is only in recent decades that economic history has become integrated into the mainstream work of historians. Those of us who were undergraduates in the late twentieth century can remember university economic history departments being located in buildings on the other side of...
The Historian 168: Out now
-
The Historian 168: Economic History
The magazine of the Historical Association
4 Ask The Historian
5 Editorial (Read article)
6 A stimulating journey along the ‘weary paths of Dryasdust’: using financial records to gain insights into medieval society – Alisdair Dobie (Read article)
11 Letters
12 Women who stirred the pot: female protagonists in early East India Company history – Karin Doull (Read...
The Historian 168: Economic History
-
Virtual Branch Recording: Assassins and Templars
Article
In this talk, Steve Tibble discusses the Assassins and Templars, two of history's most legendary groups.
One was a Shi’ite religious sect, the other a Christian military order created to defend the Holy Land. Steve Tibble traces the history of these two groups from their origins to their ultimate destruction showing how they survived...
Virtual Branch Recording: Assassins and Templars
-
Recorded webinar: The Cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians at the time of Fascism
Article
The Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini understood more than other leaders of his generation the power of images and used them to great effect in building his personality cult which was central to Italian Fascism. In this illustrated webinar, Professor Giuliana Pieri will explore the evolution of the iconography of...
Recorded webinar: The Cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians at the time of Fascism
-
Verdun: the endless battle
Historian article
Most can agree that the battle of Verdun started 100 years ago, on 21 February 1916, when the Germans began attacking French positions north and east of the old fortress town on the Meuse river. Few can agree on when it ended. The Germans might draw a line under it...
Verdun: the endless battle
-
Social Darwinism: the myth and its reinvention
Historian article
‘Social Darwinism’ has been associated in academia and popular consciousness with negative concepts such as hyper-nationalism and eugenics. Geoffrey M. Hodgson challenges the notion that Social Darwinism or its proponents were ever well-defined. By tracing the use of ‘Social Darwinism’ across academic disciplines and globally over a long period, Hodgson...
Social Darwinism: the myth and its reinvention
-
More than skin deep: unmasking the history of cold cream
Historian article
From the ancient Mediterranean to the shelves of twenty-first century pharmacies and cosmetic counters, cold cream has a long history. In this article, Farhana Qayoom Shaikh explores how Galen’s simple formula for treating skin complaints transitioned over the centuries into a luxury beauty product.
More than skin deep: unmasking the history of cold cream
-
Opinion: the populist politics of Joseph Chamberlain and Donald Trump
Historian feature
What are the pitfalls and pluses of comparing historical figures with contemporary politicians? Chris Godden argues that recent comparisons of Donald Trump with one of his predecessors may be wide of the mark, but that a more illuminating parallel may be found with one of Britain’s most controversial nineteenth-century politicians.
Opinion: the populist politics of Joseph Chamberlain and Donald Trump
-
Schools of Vice: how a medical scandal led to the dismantling of Britain’s last prison hulks
Historian article
Hulks – former naval ships used as prisons for those convicted of serious crime and sentenced to transportation – were intended to be a temporary solution to a penal crisis caused by the American Revolutionary Wars. These ‘schools of vice’, or ‘floating hells’ lasted 80 years, casting a shadow over...
Schools of Vice: how a medical scandal led to the dismantling of Britain’s last prison hulks
