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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
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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
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200 editions of Teaching History!
Teaching History feature
In 1968, Mary Price wrote an article for the HA journal, History. Entitled ‘History in danger’, it told a shocking story. The subject of history in Britain’s schools was losing its identity, argued Price, disappearing into various species of integrated humanities and civics. Pupils could see little purpose for it,...
200 editions of Teaching History!
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What can pupil voice tell us about perceptions of history?
Primary History article
This article is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
Salma Begum and Rachel Bruce explore the use of pupil...
What can pupil voice tell us about perceptions of history?
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The 2024 Primary History survey: what are the implications for what it revealed?
Primary History article
This article is free to everyone. For access to hundreds of other high-quality resources by primary history experts along with free or discounted CPD and membership of a thriving community of teachers and subject leaders, join the Historical Association today
The 2024 Primary Survey follows a series of earlier biennial surveys...
The 2024 Primary History survey: what are the implications for what it revealed?
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The nature of Charles I’s government
Historian article
Charlotte Brownhill explores the nature of Charles I’s government. Rather than dismissing this as a disaster, she argues that there were many positive features of his government before the outbreak of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and suggests that we should consider the difficulties caused by the complexities of...
The nature of Charles I’s government
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Recruiting volunteers to fight in the First World War
Historian article
‘Your Country Needs You’ and other posters are still remembered today as a prominent vehicle by which men were encouraged to fight in the First World War. Virtually absent from the literature, however, is analysis of the impact of thousands of recruitment meetings and their speakers. Robert Bullard explores the contribution...
Recruiting volunteers to fight in the First World War
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Cultural and historical heritage of Ukraine
Historian article
Olha Makliuk outlines the challenges faced by Ukraine as Russia tries to rewrite the narrative of Ukrainian sovereignty. Through a process of historical and cultural appropriation as well as the destruction of monuments, she explores how history has been weaponised by the Putin regime. Finally, she considers how the impact...
Cultural and historical heritage of Ukraine
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Building history connections with the local community
Primary History article
St George’s is a Quality Mark school. Part of what impressed the assessors was the way that the school was able to extend its 150th anniversary to include the wider community of Mossley. Many schools have links with their local community but this article shows that sometimes this can be more...
Building history connections with the local community
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Musings and misconceptions about Remembrance Day
Primary History article
Very few primary schools do not address Remembrance Day in some form or another. We assume a broad awareness of what it stands for but Susie Townsend suggests that this may not always have been the case. We may be making assumptions about children’s awareness that are not justified. This...
Musings and misconceptions about Remembrance Day
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Triumphs Show: Year 9 explore what permacrisis might have felt like in 1938
Teaching History feature
In April 2023, I attended an event at the University of Sheffield with my colleague, Katy Dixon, and a handful of our Year 10 historians. The event showcased the work of Professor Julie V. Gottlieb and playwright Nicola Baldwin who had written a play about the writer and critic of...
Triumphs Show: Year 9 explore what permacrisis might have felt like in 1938
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Art and ecology
Historian article
Artworks and objects from the past provide us with a compelling record of human interaction with the natural world. In this article, art historians Carla Benzan and Samuel Shaw explain how they are using collections from galleries and museums to bring environmental history to new audiences and to increase awareness...
Art and ecology
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Tackling A-level students’ misconceptions about historical interpretations and the historiography of Scottish witchcraft
Teaching History article
Maya Stiasny was troubled by a stubbornly persistent flaw in her A-level students’ conception of historical interpretations. Students were seeing historians’ arguments as snapshots in time, emerging magically and unproblematically out of personal views, rather than crafted as a process. Stiasny wanted her students to understand that process as an academically rigorous...
Tackling A-level students’ misconceptions about historical interpretations and the historiography of Scottish witchcraft
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Exploring the story of elections and voting with your primary students
Primary History article
David Carr introduces us to some of the educational resources and opportunities linked to the Houses of Parliament. With the prospect of a general election, it provides some interesting background information as well as suggestions for engaging children with the democratic process...
Exploring the story of elections and voting with your primary students
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From Norwich to Nara
Historian article
Simon Kaner explores the fascinating parallels revealed by the international research project From Nara to Norwich between life and religious belief at the ends of the Silk Roads.
Nara is the ancient capital region of Japan. The eighth century imperial treasury, the Shōsōin, with its treasures from China and central Asia, is...
From Norwich to Nara
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The year without a summer and other cautionary tales
Primary History article
Susie Townsend explores the story of the Tambora volcanic explosion of 1815 and the catastrophic effect that this had on climate around the world. She uses contemporary accounts and images to set the scene. She demonstrates how this one event far away in Indonesia affected climate across the whole world....
The year without a summer and other cautionary tales
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Rescuing assessment from ‘knowledge-rich gone wrong’
Teaching History article
Christine Counsell sets out her concerns about the effects on history teaching of recent trends in secondary assessment practice. Situating her analysis within a long-term story of interplay between government policy, classroom practice and school leadership responses to inspection, Counsell sees new distortions emerging in the name of knowledge. She argues...
Rescuing assessment from ‘knowledge-rich gone wrong’
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Maximising the power of storytelling in the history classroom
Teaching History article
James Hopkins’s Year 10 class had been excited by their course on medicine through time, but were less enthused about their new study of Norman England. They told him that the topic felt ‘distant’ and ‘not real’. Recalling his own experience as a student, Hopkins was interested in the ways...
Maximising the power of storytelling in the history classroom
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The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Historian article
The Nazis came to power in 1933 with an openly racist and antisemitic set of policies. In the years leading up to the start of the Second World War, those policies were carried out through legislation and governmental actions, with the support of many members of German society. Once the war started,...
The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
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Imagining cities: exploring historical sites as contested spaces
Teaching History article
Geraint Brown and Matt Stanford share the daunting challenge and intriguing opportunities that are presented by leading a school history trip to a site as complex as Berlin. That the city is a palimpsest, layered with stories and tissued with conflicting identities, experiences and meanings, makes planning a trip extremely...
Imagining cities: exploring historical sites as contested spaces
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Broadening horizons: using cross-curricular conversations to support historical understanding
Teaching History article
Bettney and Ridley focus on the context in which we teach and in which our students learn and on history in the context of the whole school curriculum and in relation to education about personal development. Taking the example of learning about parliament, they explore how the history curriculum and the...
Broadening horizons: using cross-curricular conversations to support historical understanding
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Arctic aspirations: Britain and Icelandic independence, 1917–18
Historian article
As it sought independence, Iceland gained a new significance for Britain during the latter stages of the First World War, writes Ben Markham.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Iceland was not an independent country. Isolated in the North Atlantic Ocean, it was nonetheless considered an integral part of...
Arctic aspirations: Britain and Icelandic independence, 1917–18
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Move Me On 191: using sources in lessons
Teaching History feature
Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon...
Move Me On 191: using sources in lessons
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Primary History summer resource 2023: Early civilisations
Primary member resource
Our free summer resource for 2023 is intended to enhance your subject knowledge about ancient civilisations. We have selected two articles from the HA journal The Historian that provide you with an insight into current historical knowledge.
The first article includes Sumer, Indus, Shang and Egypt, early civilisations that are identified in...
Primary History summer resource 2023: Early civilisations
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What is so important about interpretations?
Primary History article
Tim Lomas explores one of the key disciplinary concepts that form part of school history – that of interpretations and representations. This has been a staple of the National Curriculum since its inception. While many schools have a successful approach to it, others struggle. In this article Tim Lomas discusses its...
What is so important about interpretations?
