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Deaf marriages and sign language recognition
Historian article
In the pre-modern world, the ability to speak and to hear were fundamental to participation in civil society. How, then, could prelingual deaf people survive and thrive? Rosamund Oates, author of the recently published Silent Histories: Deafness in Early Modern England, charts the long struggle for the recognition of sign...
Deaf marriages and sign language recognition
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Mapping a disability history perspective onto the history of the British Empire
Historian article
Disabled peoples could be found across the British Empire; at the same time, the process of colonisation could create forms of disability, while the concept of ‘disability’ became embedded in discourses of race and gender. In this article, Esme Cleall demonstrates how thinking about disability is essential to understanding the...
Mapping a disability history perspective onto the history of the British Empire
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‘I am your most troublesome pauper’: disability and the New Poor Law
Historian article
In nineteenth-century England and Wales, the New Poor Law was the state’s solution for those who wouldn’t – as well as those who couldn’t – work. Even for disabled paupers, the line between the two wasn’t always clear cut. In this article, Carol Beardmore shows how those with physical disabilities...
‘I am your most troublesome pauper’: disability and the New Poor Law
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Broken bodies and racial lessons: disabled Wehrmacht veterans in Nazi Germany
Historian article
Throughout history, war has been one of the great producers of disability, and the disabled veteran has often provoked feelings of pride and pity. In this article, Christopher Thomas Goodwin explores the multiple meanings of the disabled soldier in Nazi Germany...
Broken bodies and racial lessons: disabled Wehrmacht veterans in Nazi Germany
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Real lives: important lessons from the childhood experiences of Harry Drabble
Historian feature
Helen Parker-Drabble shows how the experiences of her father, Harry Drabble, who was hospitalised for bovine tuberculosis as a child, remain fiercely relevant for families, medical practitioners and policymakers in twenty-first century Britain...
Real lives: important lessons from the childhood experiences of Harry Drabble
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In conversation with David Turner
Historian feature
Disabled people have always been present in Britain’s past. Yet they have often appeared only at the edge of historical narratives: as recipients of charity, as objects of medical attention, as casualties of war or work, or as figures in stories told by institutions rather than by themselves. In Disability:...
In conversation with David Turner
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Jeeves and the British Empire
Historian article
The writer P.G. Wodehouse is best remembered for his comic portrayals of the exploits of wealthy, young ‘men about town’ during the interwar years, but his writing often contained a multi-layered commentary on British society and politics, the extent of which has not yet been fully appreciated. In this article,...
Jeeves and the British Empire
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Doing history: Exploring behind the scenes in the corridors of power
Historian feature
As the official repository for records of government of England, Wales and the UK, The National Archives at Kew offers so many opportunities for revelationary research. In this article, Steve Illingworth shows how documents in this treasure trove provide new insights on activities and debates behind closed doors...
Doing history: Exploring behind the scenes in the corridors of power
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Out and about: The Witney Blanket Mills
Historian feature
In this account of the history of blanket weaving in Witney (West Oxfordshire), Young Historian essay prize-winner Isabella Duncan reflects on the importance of local history for better understanding our place in the present...
Out and about: The Witney Blanket Mills
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English first-aid organisations and the Provisional IRA mainland bombing campaign of 1974
Historian article
Barry Doyle reveals how the devastating Provisional IRA bombing of two Birmingham public houses in 1974 led to a resurgence in first-aid training and preparation, on the scale with which we are familiar today.
English first-aid organisations and the Provisional IRA mainland bombing campaign of 1974
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Virtual Branch recording: The Maginot Line
Article
Why did the the Maginot Line – that marvel of 1930s engineering with its miles of fortifications and bunkers to deter German invasion – fail so spectacularly in 1940?
Its vast underground forts were designed to withstand artillery and chemical attack, yet France fell in just six weeks, leaving the Line as a symbol...
Virtual Branch recording: The Maginot Line
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Filmed lecture: How (not) to historicise the contemporary United States
HA Conference 2026 keynote lecture
For the last two and a half centuries, the USA has been shaped by a remarkable sense of its own unique place in world history, yet consumed by never-ending battles over what this means. 250 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the United States appears to be at...
Filmed lecture: How (not) to historicise the contemporary United States
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The Aftermath of War: Allied Occupation and Displaced Persons in post-war Europe
Article
Dr Samantha K. Knapton [she/her] is an Assistant Professor in History at the University of Nottingham, UK. She is an historian of central and east-central Europe, forced displacement, and international humanitarianism. In 2023, she has published her first monograph, Occupiers, Humanitarian Workers, and Polish Displaced Persons in British-occupied Germany and a co-edited...
The Aftermath of War: Allied Occupation and Displaced Persons in post-war Europe
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To see the witch: understanding the European witch craze through visual art
Historian article
During the European witch craze, visual art played a powerful role in shaping belief in witches. The printing press allowed images of witchcraft to circulate widely, amplifying fear and suspicion. In this article, Natasha Brockman explores how such imagery did more than illustrate witchcraft: it helped create it, teaching people what witches...
To see the witch: understanding the European witch craze through visual art
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The Lady and the Unicorn
Historian article
As well as being admired for their aesthetic beauty, medieval and early modern tapestries often conveyed deeper symbolic meanings. Here Damien Dessane examines a famous sixteenth century tapestry and reveals the insights it provides into Anglo-French relations in that period and into the increasing agency of some important women...
The Lady and the Unicorn
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Hiding in plain sight: an eighteenth-century portrait of an Inca leader
Historian article
In this article, Emily C. Floyd explores a rare eighteenth-century self-commissioned engraved portrait of an elite Indigenous man in colonial Lima. By comparing this unassuming image with a more overtly Inca portrait, the article reveals how Indigenous leaders navigated identity, loyalty, and colonial restrictions, using portraiture to assert agency in...
Hiding in plain sight: an eighteenth-century portrait of an Inca leader
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Losing sight of the bigger picture: public policy and the visual arts
Historian article
From the 1940s to the late twentieth century, the visual arts in England were promoted and encouraged in a variety of ways by politicians and other policymakers, at both national and local level. Recent decades have seen a marginalisation of the arts, particularly in education. In this article Pauline Wood...
Losing sight of the bigger picture: public policy and the visual arts
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‘My sweet San Gimignano’: a Tuscan commune in the Middle Ages
Historian article
The northern Italian town of San Gimignano is famous for its high-rise medieval towers. The size of these fortified buildings might lead to the assumption that the town was a place of constant conflict and discord. Here John Law uses a wide variety of evidence to argue that San Gimignano...
‘My sweet San Gimignano’: a Tuscan commune in the Middle Ages
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Vikings in the East: from Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin
Historian article
Martyn Whittock explores the lesser-known world of the Vikings who travelled east, forging the early state of Kyivan Rus and leaving a legacy still debated in Russia and Ukraine today. From silver routes and sagas to modern political claims, this article explores how their story and origins remain as dramatic...
Vikings in the East: from Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin
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Out and About: Leavesden Country Park
Historian feature
Concerns about demobilised soldiers after the Second World War were widespread, reflecting both the practical challenges faced by returning servicemen and broader anxieties about their reintegration into civilian life. In this article, Helen George explores how a temporary education facility in Hertfordshire helped prepare demobilised Canadian soldiers for higher education...
Out and About: Leavesden Country Park
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Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
Historian feature
In this article, Rob Pritchard reflects on his long-standing engagement with the Black Country Living Museum, exploring how visits to this ‘living history’ site transformed his approach to teaching history...
Out and About: The Black Country Living Museum
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Real Lives: Eduard Friedrich Kärger
Historian feature
In this article, Alex van der Ham and Ling-Hua Huang explain how a casual browse through a nineteenth century journal led to an intriguing research journey into the author of a scientific dissertation. Here they discovered interesting insights into Prussian society in the years leading to the Unification of Germany,...
Real Lives: Eduard Friedrich Kärger
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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
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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 height...
Doing history: A historian in the Round Tower
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What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the impact of the English Reformation
Teaching History feature
Since the first stirrings of religious reform in the sixteenth century, people have been writing the history of the Reformation, debating what happened and why it happened. John Foxe arguably became the first historian of the English Reformation when he published Actes and Monuments in 1563. Better known as ‘The...
What Have Historians Been Arguing About... the impact of the English Reformation
