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Lloyd George & Gladstone
Article
Lloyd George, who died sixty years ago on 26 March 1945, grew up and began his Parliamentary career in Queen Victoria's reign. In taking up a major Welsh issue, disestablishment of the Church of Wales, he memorably clashed with William Ewart Gladstone, perhaps the greatest of all Liberal Prime Ministers....
Lloyd George & Gladstone
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The cultural biography of opium in China
Historian article
Zheng Yangwen shows that despite its association with trade, war and politics, opium was first of all a history of consumption.
Opium has fascinated generations of scholars and generated excellent scholarship on the opium trade, Anglo-Chinese relations, the two opium wars, and Commissioner Lin. The field has diversified in the post-Mao...
The cultural biography of opium in China
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Film: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War
The Searchers
Historian Robert Sackville-West joined the HA Virtual Branch in November 2021 to talk about the topic of his book The Searchers: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War. By the end of the First World War, the whereabouts of more than half a million British soldiers were unknown. Most were presumed...
Film: The Quest for the Lost of the First World War
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The history of bigamy
Historian article
Though people are still sometimes prosecuted for repeatedly marrying immigrants to rescue them from the attentions of the Home Office, while forgetting to get divorced between times, one uncovenanted result of the now common practice of living together without matrimony is the decline of that celebrated Victorian institution: bigamy.
In...
The history of bigamy
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'Wanted, The Elusive Charlie Peace': A Sheffield Killer Of The 1870s As Popular Hero
Historian article
On 28 November 1876, William and John Habron, Irish brothers habitually in trouble with the police, were tried at Manchester Assizes for the murder three months before of Police Constable Nicholas Cock (on the basis of ‘scientific’ footprint evidence at the scene of the crime). The jury found 19 year-old...
'Wanted, The Elusive Charlie Peace': A Sheffield Killer Of The 1870s As Popular Hero
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Towards Reform in 1809
Historian article
Two hundred years ago it must have seemed to some as if the time for political and economic reform in Britain had arrived. A number of the necessary conditions appeared to be in place:
recent examples from America and France showing how readily and rapidly established systems could be overturned...
Towards Reform in 1809
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The mechanical heroes of the Battle of Britain
Historian article
The Battle of Britain is often described as the point at which the Nazi threat began to diminish and cracks began to form in Hitler's regime. The air campaign launched by the Germans in the summer of 1940 intended to wipe out the existence of the British Royal Air Force...
The mechanical heroes of the Battle of Britain
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Nazism and Stalinism
Classic Pamphlet
Is it legitimate to compare the Nazi and Stalinist regimes? There might seem little room for doubt. It is often taken as self-evident that the two regimes were variations of a common type. They are bracketed together in school and university courses, as well as text books, under labels such...
Nazism and Stalinism
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Virtual Branch Recording: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World
Article
This talk explored the struggle for liberation from the perspective of the enslaved, wherever possible in their own words. Dr Sudhir Hazareesingh shines a light on the lives of revolutionaries like Toussaint Louverture, José Antonio Aponte, Nat Turner, and the pregnant rebel Solitude; touching on the stories of the freed...
Virtual Branch Recording: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World
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History's big picture in three dimensions
Historian article
More and more historians, from diverse political viewpoints, are now expressing concern at the fragmentation of history, especially in the schools curriculum. The fragmentation of the subject has followed upon the collapse of sundry Grand Narratives, such as the ‘March of Progress', which once swept all of history into a...
History's big picture in three dimensions
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Film: The Kennedys and the Gores
HA Conference 2019 - Keynote Speech
This film was taken at the HA Annual Conference 2019 in Chester and features the HA's President: Professor Tony Badger who presented Friday's keynote lecture.
Find out more about the HA Conference.
In a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism and its democracy, it is perhaps surprising that family...
Film: The Kennedys and the Gores
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Anti-Americanism in Britain during the Second World War
Historian article
The Second World War saw the development of significant anti-Americanism in Britain. This article locates the centre of wartime anti-Americanism in the politics of Conservative imperialists, who believed the USA was trying to deliberately dismantle the British Empire in order to fulfil its own imperial ambitions.
The Second World War...
Anti-Americanism in Britain during the Second World War
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Sir Francis Dent and the First World War
Historian article
Not your typical soldier, not your typical service
The term ‘citizen soldier' evokes a particularly powerful image in Britain. The poignant histories of the ‘Pals' Battalions' cast a familiar, often tragic shadow over the popular memory of the First World War. Raised according to geographical and occupational connections, names such...
Sir Francis Dent and the First World War
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Film: Stalin - The Early Soviet Economy & the preparation for war
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
In this film, Professor James Harris (University of Leeds) examines how the New Economic Policy transformed the Soviet economy after the civil war, and looks at Stalin’s central role in that recovery. Key during that period was Stalin’s dispute with Nikolai Bukharin and the Great Break, and the drive to...
Film: Stalin - The Early Soviet Economy & the preparation for war
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Film: Stalin - Interpretations and Legacy
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
In this film, Professor James Harris (University of Leeds) reflects upon how historical interpretations of Stalin have changed over time. Stalin’s legacy and influence continues to materialise in all subsequent Soviet and Russian administrations. The Man of Steel is used by politicians when they are looking for arguments to open...
Film: Stalin - Interpretations and Legacy
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Film: Stalin - World War II
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
In this film, Professor James Harris (University of Leeds) examines Stalin and the Soviet preparations for global war. The reasons why Stalin agreed the Nazi-Soviet pact are explored as are Stalin’s response to invasion in 1941. Professor Harris addresses the impact the war had on the USSR and how that...
Film: Stalin - World War II
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Anorexia Nervosa in the nineteenth century
Historian article
First referred to by Richard Morton (1637-98) in his Phthisiologia under the denomination phthisis nervosa as long ago as 1689, anorexia nervosa was given its name in a note by Sir William Gull (1816-90) in 1874. Gull had earlier described a disorder he termed apepsia hysterica, involving extreme emaciation without...
Anorexia Nervosa in the nineteenth century
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India in 1914
Historian article
Rather as Queen Victoria was never as ‘Victorian' as we tend to assume, so British India in the years leading up to 1914 does not present the cliched spectacle of colonists in pith helmets and shorts lording it over subservient natives that we might assume. Certainly that sort of relationship...
India in 1914
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Bristol and the Slave Trade
Classic Pamphlet
Captain Thomas Wyndham of Marshfield Park in Somerset was on voyage to Barbary where he sailed from Kingroad, near Bristol, with three ships full of goods and slaves thus beginning the association of African Trade and Bristol. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Bristol was not a place of...
Bristol and the Slave Trade
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Dress becomes her: the appearance and apparel of Elizabeth II
Historian article
She never carries any money but she does carry a handbag. The way that clothes and fashion choices made by HM The Queen are part of her modern armour and reflect her choices as a monarch as discussed in this article.
As debates about the relevance of the institution of monarchy within Britain...
Dress becomes her: the appearance and apparel of Elizabeth II
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The Oxford Movement and Anglican Ritualism
Classic Pamphlet
The English Reformation of the Sixteenth century had been a compromise, both politically and theologically. The administrative framework of the medieval church, with its system of church courts, private patronage, pluralism, the social and financial gulf between the lower and higher clergy, its inadequacy of clerical education and its hierarchical...
The Oxford Movement and Anglican Ritualism
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A-Level Topic Guide: Germany 1871-1991
Multipage Article
German history in the nineteenth and twentieth century is a popular area of study at A-level across the examination boards. Whichever board you are studying with and whatever the focus of your study unit on German history, the resources in this unit will support you as you develop your subject knowledge, write essays and...
A-Level Topic Guide: Germany 1871-1991
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Podcast Series: German History 1918-1948
Multipage Article
An HA Podcasted History of Modern German History: 1918-1948 featuring: Sir Ian Kershaw, Professor Jill Stephenson of the University of Edinburgh, Dr Christina von Hodenberg of Queen Mary, University of London and Professor Benjamin Ziemann of the University of Sheffield.
Podcast Series: German History 1918-1948
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Film: Lenin and the birth of Soviet Russia
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
Having changed the course of Russian society Lenin now needed to secure his Bolshevik survival. Unlike his predecessor he saw no need to continue with the Imperialist policies of a war in Europe. Territory could be sacrificed for control, but would promises and rhetoric be enough to govern among people...
Film: Lenin and the birth of Soviet Russia
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Film: Lenin's early thought
Film Series: Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union
As Lenin’s own political outlook and beliefs developed so did the European movements of Socialism and Communism. Groups emerged that wanted to radically change society and social structures. Lenin positioned himself as one of the leaders and crucially one of the thinkers behind these new ideas and movements.
Dr Lara...
Film: Lenin's early thought
