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Film: Mary I and Tudor Royal Authority
Development of Tudor Royal Authority film series
In this film Dr Anna Whitelock from Royal Holloway, University of London, discusses the life of Mary I, the first crowned Queen of England. Dr Whitelock looks at Mary's difficult early life, her submission to Henry VIII and the rise of a warrior princess. Dr Whitelock explores Mary as a courageous...
Film: Mary I and Tudor Royal Authority
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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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A tale of two statues
Historian article
Dave Martin relates how the statue of one of our imperial ‘heroes’ prompted a campaign to have it taken down while the statue of another imperial ‘hero’ prompted a fund-raising campaign for its repair.
As the tide of Empire ebbed across the globe vestiges of British rule remained, some great,...
A tale of two statues
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Terriers in India
Historian Article
Peter Stanley is working on the largely unexplored history of the thousands of British Territorial soldiers who served in India during the First World War using their letters and diaries. He is trying to discover what happened to these men when they returned to Britain. Did their service in India...
Terriers in India
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Parliament, people or privilege: Do we need a better understanding of constitutional history?
Historical Association conference 2017: round table discussion
Join our panel, including Dr Alix Green, Professor Tony Badger and Professor Justin Champion as they discuss how recent polls and election results have confounded many pundits. Do calls to ‘give us our country back’ or ‘return our sovereignty’ suggest that many people in liberal democracies need a better understanding of...
Parliament, people or privilege: Do we need a better understanding of constitutional history?
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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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Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen
Historian article
Khadija Tauseef introduces the first of four successive sultanahs of Aceh during the seventeenth century.
As the sun sets on the glorious reign of Queen Elizabeth II, we pause and look back at the many queens that have contributed greatly to our historical heritage. While female sovereigns in Islamic kingdoms were a...
Taj ul-Alam Safiatuddin Syah: a trailblazing Islamic queen
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Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?
Article
After a revolution to remove the monarchy did the French revolutionaries create another leadership of power over ideals? William Doyle re-evaluates the reputation of the so-called architect of terror during the French Revolutionary years.
Two recent books reflect a seemingly endless fascination with the man whose downfall brought the end...
Robespierre: a reluctant terrorist?
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(Un)exceptional women: queenship and power in medieval Europe
Historian article
How was the power of a Queen described and how far did It extend? In this article some of the most important queens of the Medieval period are examined for the authority they were able to wield.
When we think of queens, the idea that they are extraordinary women, elevated to the highest status...
(Un)exceptional women: queenship and power in medieval Europe
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‘Cromwell’s trunks’
Historian article
Ted Vallance discusses the extent to which Richard Cromwell was able to muster broader support for his rule than is sometimes acknowledged.
If the second Lord Protector, Richard Cromwell, is remembered at all, it is as a byword for political failure. Succeeding to the position of head of state after his father, Oliver Cromwell’s death in September...
‘Cromwell’s trunks’
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Out and about in Zanzibar
Historian article
Joe Wilkinson takes us on a tour of the island of Zanzibar, where the slave trade continued long after the British abolished it.
Mention Zanzibar and most people will think of an Indian Ocean paradise, perfect for honeymooners, relaxing on the popular pristine white north-eastern beaches of Bwejuu and Paje,...
Out and about in Zanzibar
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History Abridged: Balmoral
Historian feature
History Abridged: This feature seeks to take a person, event or period and abridge, or focus on, an important event or detail that can get lost in the big picture. Think Horrible Histories for grownups (without the songs and music). See all History Abridged articles
Royal majesty is buttressed by...
History Abridged: Balmoral
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On Black Lives Matter
Article
2020 has been an interesting year in many ways – both as a year to make history and one that has sought to tackle many representations of the past. The Black Lives Matter campaign that has taken on new energy across the globe in response to the killing of a...
On Black Lives Matter
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Czech Uranium and Stalin's Bomb
Article
Z.A.B. Zeman uncovers a fateful link between Czechoslovakia’s brief monopoly of uranium in Europe and the country’s subordination to the USSR. The great uranium rush started in 1943 and lasted for about seven years. Unlike the gold rushes of the past, uranium did not promise untold riches to individuals but...
Czech Uranium and Stalin's Bomb
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Queen Anne
Classic Pamphlet
In this pamphlet, James Anderson Winn, author of a recent biography of Queen Anne, recommends a new approach to historians writing about this successful and popular queen. Female, overweight, and reticent, Anne has long been underestimated. Her letters, however, show how well she understood the motives of her ministers, and...
Queen Anne
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Queenship in Medieval England: A Changing Dynamic?
Historian article
In the winter of 1235-6, Eleanor, the 12 year old daughter of Count Raymond-Berengar V of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy, left her native homeland. She travelled to England to marry King Henry III, a man 28 years her senior whom she had never met. The bride and her entourage...
Queenship in Medieval England: A Changing Dynamic?
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Cavour and Italian Unification
Classic Pamphlet
It may seem a little perverse to write a pamphlet on Cavour in 1972, the centenary year of the death of Mazzini, but no doubt there will be more than one publication on Mazzini to mark the occasion. To pretend that the two men had much in common would be...
Cavour and Italian Unification
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Francis I and Absolute Monarchy
Classic Pamphlet
Francis I of France reign lasted for more than thirty years and coincided with movements as significant as the Renaissance and the Reformation. Text-books are apt to gloss over the domestic history of France before the outbreak of the Wars of Religion and convey the impression that Francis was more...
Francis I and Absolute Monarchy
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Stalinism
Classic Pamphlet
Stalin's remarkable career raises quite fundamental questions for anyone interested in history. Marxists, whose philosophy should cause them to downgrade the role of ‘great men' as an explanation of great events, have problems in fitting Stalin into the materialist interpretation of history: did not this man ride rough-shod over the...
Stalinism
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Faction in Tudor England
Classic Pamphlet
'This wicked Tower must be fed with blood' - W. S. Gilbert's dialogue sums up the popular myth of Tudor England. This pamphlet looks at the reality, a society and politics necessarily divided into rival factions by the pulls of patronage, local loyalty and the implications of personal monarchy, and...
Faction in Tudor England
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An English Absolutism?
Classic Pamphlet
The term 'Absolutism' was coined in France in the 1790s, but the concept which described it was familiar to many Englishmen in the late seventeenth century. They talked of 'absolute monarchy', 'tyranny', 'despotism' and above all 'arbitrary government'. Their use of such terns were pejorative: they described political regimes of...
An English Absolutism?
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Tudor queens: power, identity and gender
Historian article
Gregory Gifford investigates the cultural issues raised by the sixteenth century‘s reigning queens.
In 1877 when Sitting Bull led his Lakota people across the border into Canada, he told them they were entering ‘The land of The Grandmother’ – a wonderful phrase to express Queen Victoria’s matriarchal authority. Three hundred years earlier...
Tudor queens: power, identity and gender
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Henry VIII
Classis Pamphlet
What shall we think of Henry VIII? However that question has been or may be answered, one reply is apparently impossible. Not even the most resolute believer in deterministic interpretations of history seems able to escape the spell of that magnificent figure; I know of no book on the age...
Henry VIII
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Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain
Classic Pamphlet
Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain: From the accession of the House of Trastámara to Ferdinand and IsabellaThe history of late medieval Spain is usually seen as a tiresome introduction to the reigns of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Modern historians tend to portray them as ‘new monarchs',...
Government and Society in Late Medieval Spain
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Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
Classic Pamphlet
Radicalism with a large "R", unlike Conservatism with a large "C" and Liberalism with a large "L", is not a historical term of even proximate precision. There was never a Radical Party with a national organization, local associations, or a treasury. But there were, and there are, "Radicals", generally qualified...
Radicalism and its Results, 1760-1837
