Latest Posts
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Celebrating Black History Month: Citizenship, Belonging and the Political Imagination of Women in Rhodesia, by Shepherd Mutswiri
Re-posted from our Gender History Research Cluster I was struck by the imposing Irish symbols and their historical meaning. The Irish Defence Forces marched on stage holding the Irish flag which had been chosen as the national flag during the… Continue reading
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How to prepare for your seminars, by Abbie Tibbot
Hello everyone! My name is Abbie and I’m a PhD student in the History department. University is a lot to take in when you first get here but, when you’re feeling a bit more settled, it’ll be time to get… Continue reading
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The Cold War, the Drug War, and… Summer Camp in the 1980s, by Richard M. Balzano
The Cold War shaped the latter half of the American twentieth century, and the bipolar standoff and its peripheral contests could be felt in every corner of domestic American life. Washington’s security pursuits often generated results that contradicted domestic goals,… Continue reading
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The Joys of Being an Africanist: Summertime in Tanzania, by Dr Heike I. Schmidt
Part II Conducting oral history interviews as well as participant observation are the prerogatives of the modern historian. These methods also need to be carefully learned and critically questioned as the research itself generates primary sources. They require the researcher… Continue reading
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The Joys of Being a Historian: Summertime in Tanzania, by Dr Heike I. Schmidt
Part I I knew exactly what I was doing. I planned my fieldwork to utter perfection. After all I was an experienced postdoc, having spent about three years living in Zimbabwe while studying and researching the country’s past. Now working… Continue reading
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Marrows Over Maths: The history of England’s school harvest camps, by Tamisan Latherow
There are certain images from the mass media that, as a child of the 1980s growing up in America, are ubiquitous to summer for me. The 1961 Disney film, The Parent Trap, staring Hayley Mills is one of them. Mills,… Continue reading
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How did a fear of climate lead to a climate of fear in which demonic witchcraft loomed large? Professor Helen Parish explores the connections between weather, witchcraft, faith, fears, and the human imagination…
In the first blog in this summer series, my colleague Ruth Salter invited us to hang up our umbrellas and celebrate the role played by St Swithin in our summer weather. While Ruth encouraged us to turn our eyes to… Continue reading
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‘Can You See the Real Me’: Bank Holidays and Quadrophenia, by Professor Matthew Worley
August Bank Holiday means it’s time for my annual viewing of Quadrophenia (1979), the film built around The Who’s 1973 LP of the same name. Jimmy, a young mod from London, prepares for a beano in Brighton, travelling to the… Continue reading
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Summer Weather and Winchester’s Patron Saint, by Ruth J. Salter
If you are anything like me you will be thinking that after what felt like a prolonged grey, cold winter it feels like we should’ve turned a corner into summer. I suppose it’s mild at least and that’s almost enough… Continue reading
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For better or worse? The impact of the railways upon Berkshire, by Richard Marks
On the 30th March 1840, Reading would change forever. The Great Western Railway (GWR) had arrived. The original station opened as a temporary terminus on Brunel’s main line to Bristol followed quickly by the completion of the line throughout, a… Continue reading
READING HISTORY 