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Dr Joseph Parry: the story of Wales’ greatest composer
Historian article
Colin Wheldon James introduces us to a 19th-century Welsh composer who deserves far greater recognition for his achievements in Wales as well as in England and America.
Dr Joseph Parry: the story of Wales’ greatest composer
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Dangerous Women of the Scottish Wars of Independence
Historian article
Kate Ash-Irisarri shows how three redoubtable women had significant roles in the difficult and dangerous period of the Scottish Wars of Independence.
Dangerous Women of the Scottish Wars of Independence
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St Theobald of Provins and evidence of charcoal-burning
Historian article
Trevor James has been researching the ‘saintly landscape’ for over 40 years. Here is a glimpse of what he has identified.
St Theobald of Provins and evidence of charcoal-burning
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The last battle: Bomber Command’s veterans and the fight for remembrance
Historian article
Frances Houghton examines how and why the popular memory of the Second World War continues to be contested.
Early on the morning of Monday 21 January 2019, still-wet white gloss paint was discovered to have been thrown across the Bomber Command Memorial in London’s Green Park. The bronze sculpture of a...
The last battle: Bomber Command’s veterans and the fight for remembrance
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British-Army camp followers in the Peninsular War
Historian article
Charles J. Esdaile throws light on a vital part of a field army that receives little study, the ‘baggage train’.
The subject of the involvement of women’s involvement in warfare is one that over the past 20 years has become increasingly fashionable, and there is, therefore, a growing literature on...
British-Army camp followers in the Peninsular War
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Sparta and war: myths and realities
Historian article
Stephen Hodkinson explains how images of ancient Sparta have been distorted and misused.
On 15 April 2017, at a violent right-wing rally in Berkeley, California, some striking ancient Greek symbols were visible amidst the swastikas and ‘Make America Great Again’ hats. Several demonstrators wore replica ‘Corinthian’ helmets, as worn by...
Sparta and war: myths and realities
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Gaming the medieval past
Historian article
Matthew Bennett and Ryan Lavelle explore how the devising, playing and discussion of war games can contribute to historical understanding.
Games as tools for learning are engaging for teachers and students alike. Whether computer-driven, board games, miniatures, role-play or re-enactment, they all provide scenarios within which learners can use a...
Gaming the medieval past
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My Favourite History Place: Maiden Castle
Historian feature
In the six years I have been on the editorial board of The Historian I have enjoyed reading about many historians’ favourite places so it is fitting that I write my last contribution about mine. Maiden Castle is the largest Celtic hill fort in southern Europe. I forget when I first...
My Favourite History Place: Maiden Castle
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History Abridged: Operation Black Buck
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. See all History Abridged articles
Just as the Naval Task Force had been dispatched in April 1982, days after the...
History Abridged: Operation Black Buck
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The Journey to Icarie and Reunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier
Historian article
The viewer of the internationally popular television show Dallas was routinely treated to an aerial tour that skimmed across the open prairie over the distinctive skyscrapers across the fifty-yard line of Texas Stadium and up the manicured pastures of South Fork.
This façade of larger-than-life Texana reflects an urban reality...
The Journey to Icarie and Reunion: A Romance of Socialism on the Texas Frontier
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We will remember them: well, most of them
Historian article
Richard Broadhead provides a personal view on whether the mammoth task of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission can always be fulfilled, especially at a time of so many anniversaries.
We will remember them: well, most of them
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Eleanor of Aquitaine’s journey
Historian article
Danielle E.A. Park takes us on a journey across the Pyrenees and Alps with a redoubtable woman.
Eleanor of Aquitaine has acquired a reputation as something of a femme fatale. Her considerable inheritance of Aquitaine, marriages to two kings, the allegations of an affair with her uncle Raymond of Poitiers,...
Eleanor of Aquitaine’s journey
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The German Revolution of 1918-19
Historian article
Simon Constantine examines the clashes between the Left and Right of Germany’s new Republic that helped to create the environment for future extremism and hatred.
The German Revolution of 1918-19
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Blurred Lines: the ever-decreasing distinction between fiction and nonfiction
Historian article
Everyone who studies history would love to visit the past. Few of us would like to stay for long, I suspect – if unfamiliar viruses did not finish us off within days, the superstitious locals might – but a visit would be nice. The ability to do so would settle a...
Blurred Lines: the ever-decreasing distinction between fiction and nonfiction
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Show and Tell: three Branch book events
Historian article
When members of the Glasgow and West of Scotland Branch were invited to share their views on ‘Books that Changed History’, not all the contributions were as overtly revolutionary as Thomas Paine’s Common Sense nor as familiar as the King James Bible. Marie Davidson and Richard Binns tell us more....
Show and Tell: three Branch book events
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Gone with the Wind: a great book?
Historian article
HA President Tony Badger examines the historical context which shapes our understanding of Margaret Mitchell’s enduring novel.
I had been a historian of the American South for 50 years and like Ringbaum, I had a secret. I had never read Gone with the Wind. As I came up to retirement...
Gone with the Wind: a great book?
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Exploring local sources
Historian article
Tim Lomas was correct when he said, in his article in the Summer 2019 edition of The Historian, that historians can see much more in medieval documents than the scribes intended.
Lay manors in Bedfordshire are a good example. Eggington manor, in the south-west, was part of a larger estate and held...
Exploring local sources
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My Favourite History Place: Gladstone’s Library at Hawarden
Historian feature
When I first visited Gladstone’s residential library in 1977 for a pre-university History degree reading week, I barely knew who Gladstone was. I had just come back from a holiday in Italy and the contrast between Florence and Hawarden, a Welsh border town, was startling. I came from the sunny remains...
My Favourite History Place: Gladstone’s Library at Hawarden
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Out and About in Haworth
Historian feature
Kimberley Braxton takes a tour of Brontë country, through Haworth and onto the iconic Yorkshire Moors that were central to Wuthering Heights.
Haworth is a place for walkers; even before you reach the breathtaking moors it is likely your legs will already be burning from climbing the steep Yorkshire terrain....
Out and About in Haworth
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Out and About: Kennington and the Elephant and Castle
Historian feature
The HA's very own Martin Hoare takes us on a tour of Kennington and Elephant and Castle, to some lesser-known gems that ought to be higher on the London tourist trail.
Over the years of working for the HA I’ve quite often used my lunch break to take walks around the areas...
Out and About: Kennington and the Elephant and Castle
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A year in the life of a branch coordinator
Historian article
Jenni Hyde takes us through an exciting year with the Bolton Branch and provides some great ideas for other branch secretaries.
A year in the life of a branch coordinator
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King James’s Book of Sports, 1617
Historian article
Forty years after his higher degree research into the history of sport, Trevor James explores the much wider context in which that research now stands.
Four hundred years ago, in 1617, James I made a decisive intervention into the simmering debate which had existed since the puritanical upsurge in Queen...
King James’s Book of Sports, 1617
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Decolonising the Partition of British India, 1947
Historian article
Amrita Shodhan explores the complex legacy of Partition in India and the difficulties faced by historians in unpicking these narratives. She re-evaluates the events of August 1947 through personal stories and popular memories.
The Partition that we have inherited from 1947 has a complicated lineage. It was born out of...
Decolonising the Partition of British India, 1947
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Do historical anniversaries matter? Case study: Arnhem 1944
Historian feature
2019 has been quite a year for historical anniversaries – Peterloo 200, D-Day 75, Monte Cassino 75, Women MPs 100 years, Apollo Moon Landings 50 years and all following on the tail of four years of the First World War centenary – and that is not counting the anniversaries that...
Do historical anniversaries matter? Case study: Arnhem 1944
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Hidden histories: landscape spotting – a brief guide
Historian article
The art of landscape spotting – identifying and interpreting visible archaeological features in the countryside – is an accessible, enlightening and fun way to explore our past. By finding these clues in the fields, roads, hedges and hills around us, we can start to piece together the biography of a...
Hidden histories: landscape spotting – a brief guide
