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British armoured cars on the Eastern Front in the First World War
Historian article
Charlotte Alston reveals a little-known British involvement on the Eastern Front in the Great War.In early January 1918, Lieutenant Commander Soames of the British Armoured Car Division at Kursk, in Russia, telegraphed to his commandingofficer Oliver Locker Lampson, who was in London, to thank him for his Christmas greetings. All...
British armoured cars on the Eastern Front in the First World War
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Thomas Parkinson: the Hermit of Thirsk
Historian article
About the year 1430 the citizens of Thirsk decided that their ancient parish church of St. Mary was old-fashioned and unworthy of the developing town, so they decided to build a new one. As a result, over the next eighty years or so, they produced what Pevsner described as ‘without...
Thomas Parkinson: the Hermit of Thirsk
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Battle of the Somme: the making of the 1916 propaganda film
Historian article
The versions of history on our cinema screens have an important influence upon public perceptions of the past. In his article Taylor Downing explores how the wartime British government used the cinema for propaganda purposes and how the film Battle of the Somme contributes to portrayals of that battle to this...
Battle of the Somme: the making of the 1916 propaganda film
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Opposition and Resistance in the GDR
Historian article
A journalistic coup broke over Germany on 2 January 1978. The West German news magazine, Der Spiegel, published the first part of a longer piece in which an association calling itself the ‘Alliance of German Democratic Communists’ seriously criticized the policies of the East German Communist Party, the SED, and...
Opposition and Resistance in the GDR
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Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Historian article
Much research has been devoted in recent years to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (EH), completed in 731 at the joint monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow; but in one crucial respect little progress has been made: the editing of the text. The excellent edition published by Charles Plummer in 1896...
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People
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The Origins of the Local Government Service
Historian article
The concept ‘local government’ dates only from the middle of the nineteenth century. ‘Local government service’ emerged later still. In 1903 Redlich and Hirst1 wrote of ‘municipal officers’, while in 1922 Robson2 preferred ‘the municipal civil service’. ‘Local government service’ perhaps derives its pedigree from its use in the final...
The Origins of the Local Government Service
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A Social History of the Welsh Language
Historian article
When the historian Peter Burke wrote in 1987 ‘It is high time for a social history of language’, he could scarcely have imagined that the first to meet the challenge would be the Welsh. In November 2000 the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, a research...
A Social History of the Welsh Language
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The Rainbow Circle and the New Liberalism
Historian article
The publication of the first volume of Paddy Ashdown’s Diaries in 2000 has focused renewed attention on the relationship between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party. From the first meeting between Ashdown and Tony Blair at the latter’s house on 4 September 1994, less than seven weeks after his...
The Rainbow Circle and the New Liberalism
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Reuse of the Past: A Case Study from the Ancient Maya
Historian article
The ruins of ancient settlements are dramatic and dominant features of the landscape today, and abandoned architecture and monuments were also significant features of the landscape in the ancient past. How did people interact with remnants of architecture and monuments built during earlier times?
What meaningful information about the economic,...
Reuse of the Past: A Case Study from the Ancient Maya
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The shortest war in history: The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896
Historian article
At 9am on 27 August 1896, following an ultimatum, five ships of the Royal Navy began a bombardment of the Royal Palace and Harem in Zanzibar. Thirty-eight, or 40, or 43 minutes later, depending on which source you believe, the bombardment stopped when the white flag of surrender was raised...
The shortest war in history: The Anglo-Zanzibar War of 1896
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Ideas on the Shape, Size and Movements of the Earth - Pamphlet
Classic Pamphlet
This classic pamphlet takes you through some of the key ideas on the shape, size and movements of the Earth as they changed over time from classical cosmology to the work of Galileo and Isaac Newton.
Ideas on the Shape, Size and Movements of the Earth - Pamphlet
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Podcast: Richard Evans Medlicott -The Origins of the First World War
Medlicott Podcast
This year the Historical Association's Medlicott medal for services to history went to Professor Sir Richard Evans. Richard Evans is the Regius Professor of History at Cambridge and President of Wolfson College, Cambridge. He has written numerous highly respected and internationally best-selling books. Evans is bests known for his works on...
Podcast: Richard Evans Medlicott -The Origins of the First World War
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Interpreting an early seventeenth-century cottage at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum
Historian article
The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum (WDOAM), which opened to the public in 1970, is one of the leading museums of historic buildings and rural life in the United Kingdom. It has a collection of nearly 50 historic buildings - domestic, agricultural and industrial - dating from the thirteenth...
Interpreting an early seventeenth-century cottage at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum
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'The Generous Turk': Some Eighteenth-Century Attitudes
Article
Notwithstanding the tribal hatred recently shown for each other by a handful of English and Turkish football fanatics, nobody who has travelled in Turkey or taken a holiday in that country can have failed to notice the courtesy and generosity with which visitors are invariably treated. Indeed, one of the...
'The Generous Turk': Some Eighteenth-Century Attitudes
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Podcast Series: Goths, Huns and the fall of the Roman Empire
Multipage Article
In this series of podcasts Professor Peter Heather of King's College London looks at the history of the Goths, the Huns, the division of the Roman Empire and the fall of the Roman Empire.
Podcast Series: Goths, Huns and the fall of the Roman Empire
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The effect of the loss of the American Colonies upon British Policy
Classic Pamphlet
(1) Problems of an Empire in ruinsTwo weeks after Yorktown, but before the news of that disaster had reached England, George III wrote to Lord North that "The dye is now cast whether this shall be a great Empire or the least dignified of European states." England had not fought...
The effect of the loss of the American Colonies upon British Policy
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The Value of Biography in History
Article
7 April 2000: Historical Association, Norton Medlicott Medal Lecture. President, fellow members, ladies and gentlemen. I am deeply conscious that having just received the Norton Medlicott Medal; which means so much to me, that I must try to live up to the honour itself and the traditions of the recipients....
The Value of Biography in History
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How damaging to the Nazis was the Shetland Bus between 1940 and 1944?
Historian article
The Shetland Bus operation may be considered successful in that it supplied Norwegian resistance movements with weapons and took many refugees from Norway to Shetland, and that it managed to bind just shy of 300,000 German troops in Norway. However, because of this operation, forty-four men lost their lives, and...
How damaging to the Nazis was the Shetland Bus between 1940 and 1944?
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Recorded webinar: Using 'One Day' to explore the actions that helped to lead to the Holocaust and actions of genocide
HA Webinar
This year's Holocaust Memorial Day the theme is 'One Day'. In this webinar with historian Paula Kitching, we will use the one day Wannsee Conference of January 1942 to help explore the actions of the perpetrators, the Holocaust victims and how decision making by people can lead to genocide.
This...
Recorded webinar: Using 'One Day' to explore the actions that helped to lead to the Holocaust and actions of genocide
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the British Empire and the age of revolutions in the global South
Teaching History feature
The historiography of the British Empire has taken a long course since the era of decolonisation. Political histories of the late twentieth century considered the mechanisms connecting crises at the ‘periphery’ with metropolitan decision-making. One rather overused stereotype was the so-called ‘man on the spot’ pushing empire forward, be they...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the British Empire and the age of revolutions in the global South
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Why was it so important to see Dunkirk as a triumph rather than a disaster in 1940?
Historian article
Karin Doull investigates the perceptions of the outcome of the Dunkirk evacuation within the contextual framework of the time at which it occurred.
In May 1940 the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and a proportion of the French First Army group had withdrawn, under heavy fighting to the port of Dunkirk on the...
Why was it so important to see Dunkirk as a triumph rather than a disaster in 1940?
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The Japanese History Textbook Controversy: a Content Analysis
Historian article
With almost monotonous regularity the official release in Japan of new or revised secondary school history textbook editions, as well as primeministerial annual visits to the Yasukuni Shrine to commemorate the 2.5 million Japanese war dead (including 14 Class-A war criminals), unleash a wave of international protest concerning Japan’s official...
The Japanese History Textbook Controversy: a Content Analysis
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How did the Civil Rights movement change America?
Historian article
In 1984 Jimmy Carter reflected on growing up in the segregated South. He recalled that, as a young child, he, like many white children, had had an African American child as his closest friend. The two children spent all their play time together. One day they travelled on the train...
How did the Civil Rights movement change America?
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The Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, University of York
Link
Many people are fascinated by the rich cultural heritage to be discovered in art, literature, music and historic buildings. However the fact that so much of this heritage has been substantially shaped by Christian belief and practice can pose a major problem of access and understanding for those who lack...
The Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture, University of York
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What difference has the opening (and closing) of archives after 1991 made to the historiography of the Cold War?
Twentieth-century history
Prior to the East European revolutions of 1989, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, commentators outside the region were largely reliant on printed material collected by specialist research libraries, informal rrangements with contacts ‘behind the iron curtain’, information that could be gleaned from visits to the region, and...
What difference has the opening (and closing) of archives after 1991 made to the historiography of the Cold War?
