Latest Posts

  • RUSU Excellence Awards

    By Professor David Stack, Head of Department Every year the RUSU Excellence Awards honour those staff who students regard as having “gone above and beyond their expectations, tirelessly working to improve the delivery of their teaching and learning experience”.  It… Continue reading

  • Childhood history or children’s history?

    By Dr Jeremy Burchardt (Director of the Annual Research Theme) Each year the Department of History chooses an Annual Research Theme(ART) to provide a focus for our research-related activities. For 2014-15, the research them is the history of childhood and… Continue reading

  • Deidre Barlow, “Everywoman”

    By Sean Atkinson Deidre Barlow, played by Anne Kirkbride, lit up the television screens of many over her forty-two years on Coronation Street. Everyone could relate to the character of Deidre Barlow.  In 1972, a young Deidre Barlow, walked down… Continue reading

  • Did the Cathars Exist?

    Dr Rebecca Rist   Who were the Cathars? Traditionally they have been seen as dissenters from Catholic doctrine living in the south of France and Northern Italy during the High Middle Ages. Cathar beliefs were supposed to derive from Bogomilism,… Continue reading

    Did the Cathars Exist?

  • Professor Edith Morley: The Struggles of an Educated Victorian Woman

    Congratulations to our second year student Erin Shearer on winning our undergraduate student blog competition! Erin nominated Professor Edith Morley for our Temple of Worthies. Her blog was the most read with 317 views at the closing of the competition… Continue reading

  • Stepping Stone to Hiroshima: Iwo Jima, February 1945

    By Professor Patrick Major   On 23 February 1945 one of the most iconic images of the Second World War was captured: six US Marines were frozen in time by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, as they raised the stars… Continue reading

  • Outreach Project at The Museum of English Rural Life

    By Lisa Berry Waite If you read my previous blog post before Christmas, you will of read about the outreach anniversary project commemorating a 100 years of remembrance that Dr Jacqui Turner organised, involving several History students from the university… Continue reading

  • The atomic bomb and public opinion: The limited credibility of NATO’s deterrent strategy during the Cold War

      In this week’s post of our Hiroshima 1945-2015 series, Dr Linda Risso discusses NATO and nuclear deterrence…  Dr Linda Risso The bomb. The mushroom cloud. The images of flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The shadows of victims permanently etched in the walls.… Continue reading

  • A Historical Perspective on ‘Wolf Hall’: Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More Revisited

    Rebecca Rist, Professor in Medieval History, gives her thoughts on the BBC’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall.  No doubt many of us have been tuning in to watch the television adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall on Wednesday nights. … Continue reading

    A Historical Perspective on ‘Wolf Hall’: Thomas Cromwell and Thomas More Revisited

  • HIROSHIMA 1945-2015

    Welcome to our featured blog series: Hiroshima 1945-2015.  Our first blog, by Dr Jacqui Turner and Guy Baxter, explores Reading’s connection to this historic event…  On 15th April 2011, the University of Reading received a remarkable and moving gift from the… Continue reading