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Doomed to fail: America’s intervention in Vietnam
Historian article
Why did American military involvement in Vietnam fail? In this article, David McGill explains why the United States never had a realistic chance of defeating the North Vietnamese and their Viet Cong allies.
The decision by the United States government to become involved in supporting the South Vietnamese government against the...
Doomed to fail: America’s intervention in Vietnam
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Muddy Waters: from migrant to music icon
Historian article
Matt Jux-Blayney explores the impact of the blues singer Muddy Waters against a backdrop of significant social and racial change in the United States of the mid-twentieth century.
On 3 July 1960, a man from Mississippi was introduced onto the stage of the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. He...
Muddy Waters: from migrant to music icon
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Out and About in Washington DC
Historian feature
Not everyone loves the capital of the United States. To Ulysses S Grant, it was a ‘pestilential swamp’; to novelist Gore Vidal, a ‘city of the dead’. It is true that Washington still has its problems. The District of Columbia has the highest crime rate in the United States, and the...
Out and About in Washington DC
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Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36
Historian article
Philip Woods discusses Evelyn Waugh’s contribution to understanding the nature of journalism before the Second World War.
This article compares the value to historians of the two books Evelyn Waugh wrote based on his experiences as a war correspondent covering the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935–36. The popular satiric novel Scoop (1938) is...
Evelyn Waugh’s books on the Italo-Ethiopian War, 1935–36
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Film: Social & Cultural Change
Film series: Power and authority in Germany, 1871-1991
How did a new Germany rebuild itself from the legacy of the Second World War both physically, emotionally and culturally? Professor Stibbe explores the silences of many households and how that influenced the student rebellion of the late 1960s. He also puts into perspective the cultural impact that the war...
Film: Social & Cultural Change
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Film: Key Personalities and Opposition
Film series: Power and authority in Germany, 1871-1991
Professor Matthew Stibbe examines the key political leaders of West and East Germany and how their decisions and responses to political events shaped their international relationships and the lives of the divided German population under their control. He also looks at the opposition and resistance these governments faced domestically during...
Film: Key Personalities and Opposition
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Film: Ideas and Ideology
Film series: Power and authority in Germany, 1871-1991
Professor Matthew Stibbe assesses some of the contradictory factors at play in East Germany and how that related to the wider Soviet system. He contrasts this with the development of the capitalist system that was being developed in West Germany.
If you're unable to see the film below, please use...
Film: Ideas and Ideology
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Film: Germany 1945-1991: Introduction
Film series: Power and authority in Germany, 1871-1991
Germany as a divided and defeated nation is explored through the lens of how the two new Germanys rebuilt their States politically and culturally. Professor Anna Saunders reflects on the different inequalities that existed between the two states and how stability was established between political leaders, even when political dissent...
Film: Germany 1945-1991: Introduction
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Film: Bricks and the making of the city - London in the 19th century
Virtual Branch
In this HA Virtual Branch talk Peter Hounsell drew on his recently published book Bricks of Victorian London, exploring the crucial role brick production played in the creation of Britain's capital and why the important place of bricks in the fabric of the city isn't always obvious.
Peter Hounsell has published...
Film: Bricks and the making of the city - London in the 19th century
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Recorded Webinar: ‘Drawing the Line’: the 1947 Partition of India
Article
August 2022 marks 75 years since British India was divided at independence into two separate states: India and Pakistan (the latter including today’s Bangladesh). As with the 70th commemoration in 2017, this anniversary will trigger a great deal of collective remembering in Britain just as in South Asia itself.
Freedom from...
Recorded Webinar: ‘Drawing the Line’: the 1947 Partition of India
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Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War
Churchill's Great Game
In this HA Virtual Branch talk Professor Richard Toye explores Churchill’s response to the USSR and how his actions during the early Cold War years intersected with his views of traditional Anglo-Russian tensions and the legacy of the ‘Great Game’.
Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University...
Film: Rethinking the origins of the Cold War
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Film: Nazi Germany
Film series: Power and authority in Germany, 1871-1991
Dr Victoria Taylor provides an overview of the rise to power of Hitler from disillusioned veteran to political operator. She goes on to explore the messaging and state interventions that brought many Germans under Hitler and the Nazis spell as they enacted their ideas of what a powerful Germany should...
Film: Nazi Germany
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Tourism: the birth and death of the little Welsh town?
Historian article
Millie Punshon is a sixth form student in North Wales and was one of this year's finalists in the HA's Great Debate public speaking competition.
It is no unknown fact that the Victorian city-slickers adored the north coast of Wales, and without them towns such as Llandudno, Beaumaris, and Betws-y-Coed may not have...
Tourism: the birth and death of the little Welsh town?
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Mountbatten in retirement: the abortive trip to rebel Rhodesia
Historian article
Adrian Smith investigates an abortive plan for the earl to intervene in Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence.
Earl Mountbatten of Burma boasted a unique CV: Chief of Combined Operations, Supreme Commander South-East Asia, Admiral of the Fleet and First Sea Lord, Chief of the Defence Staff, and Viceroy of India. Yet somehow...
Mountbatten in retirement: the abortive trip to rebel Rhodesia
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Film: Discussion: The post Civil Rights era
Film series: The African-American Civil Rights Movement
Professor Tony Badger, Professor Joe Street and Professor Brian Ward discuss the African-American Civil Rights movement and examine different ways we might interpret the significance of key individuals, groups, institutions and events that played a role in its development and progress.
In this final section the activities of the key individuals...
Film: Discussion: The post Civil Rights era
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Philip Larkin: appreciating parish churches
Historian article
We pay tribute to one of Britain’s finest poets, at the centenary of his birth, and celebrate his sensitive recognition of the spiritual tradition to be found in parish churches.
There have been various tributes this year which have commemorated the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of the celebrated poet, Philip...
Philip Larkin: appreciating parish churches
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Good Evening Sweetheart
Historian article
The talk given by Sue and Pete Mowforth to the Glasgow Branch, reading from a selection of their parents’ war-time letters, resulted in a flurry of media interest from the national press and radio, including an appearance on the BBC’s The One Show in February 2017.
Olga and Cyril Mowforth married in June...
Good Evening Sweetheart
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Film: Discussion: What global events influenced the Civil Rights Movement?
Film series: The African-American Civil Rights Movement
Professor Tony Badger, Professor Joe Street and Professor Brian Ward discuss the African-American Civil Rights movement and examine different ways we might interpret the significance of key individuals, groups, institutions and events that played a role in its development and progress.
The Civil Rights movement in the US was affected...
Film: Discussion: What global events influenced the Civil Rights Movement?
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Out and About on Uzbekistan’s Silk Road
Historian feature
“For lust of knowing what should not be known— We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.”
So wrote poet James Elroy Flecker in 1913, who had perhaps an unduly romantic view of what motivated many of Uzbekistan’s earlier visitors. A more realistic explanation was proffered in the thirteenth century by the Persian...
Out and About on Uzbekistan’s Silk Road
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Recorded webinar: Ordinary people - Holocaust Memorial Day 2023
Recorded webinar
To choose to act, to have no choice to be who you are, to live an ordinary life in extraordinary times? These are all questions that the Holocaust raises. Millions of people became victims of the Nazis, millions more choose not to act to stop the events around them, felt...
Recorded webinar: Ordinary people - Holocaust Memorial Day 2023
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Film: Key groups in the African-American Civil Rights Movement
Film series: The African-American Civil Rights Movement
In this film, Professor Brian Ward and Professor Joe Street of Northumbria University look at two of the key groups that played a significant role in the development of the Civil Rights Movement: the NAACP (The National Association for the Development of Coloured People) and the Black Panthers.
If you're unable...
Film: Key groups in the African-American Civil Rights Movement
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Film: Key individuals in the African-American Civil Rights Movement
Film series: The African-American Civil Rights Movement
The African-American Civil Rights Movement involved many significant individuals, some prominent and some less so.
In this film, Professor Brian Ward and Professor Joe Street of Northumbria University look at the role, significance and legacy of three key figures in the movement: Martin Luther King, Jr, Malcolm X and Rosa...
Film: Key individuals in the African-American Civil Rights Movement
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Learning from the Aftermath of the Holocaust
Article
International Journal of Historical Learning, Teaching and Research [IJHLTR], Volume 14, Number 2 – Spring/Summer 2017
ISSN: 14472-9474
Abstract
In this article I seek to encourage those involved in Holocaust education in schools to engage not just with the Holocaust but also with its aftermath. I conceptualise the latter in terms of two...
Learning from the Aftermath of the Holocaust
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Navigating the ‘imperial history wars’
Teaching History article
Concerned by the growing tendency of politicians and press to revive the moral balance-sheet approach to British imperial history and by some evidence of its resurgence in schools, Alex Benger set about devising a framework which would keep pupils’ analysis rigorously historical, rather than moral and politicised. In this article,...
Navigating the ‘imperial history wars’
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Recorded Webinar: India and the Second World War
Article
Two-and-a-half million men from undivided India served the British during the Second World War. Their experiences are little remembered today, neither in the West where a Euro/US-centric memory of the war dominates, nor in South Asia, which privileges nationalist histories of independence from the British Empire. What was it like...
Recorded Webinar: India and the Second World War
