History

Ambitious plans should enable research centre to apply its unique insights to ‘contemporary cultural, political and social understanding’

Academics need to think far more carefully about how they define and police the boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate knowledge, argues Michael D. Gordin

Institutions face tough choices and often fierce criticism in trying to make reparation for their tainted origins

Jan Machielsen considers the ‘cancel culture’ of the Counter-Reformation and its echoes today

Recent examples explore everything from radical vaudeville to the legacy of slavery

Tributes paid to Brown University and Carnegie Corporation president: ‘a man of the world who inspired the world’

Delhi redevelopment could put irreplaceable documents at risk, say scholars

With history books increasingly including first-person, ‘confessional’ elements, authors explain why they take this approach, while other historians reflect on the dangers

As post-92 departments close, non-traditional students and scholars risk being shut out – again, says Panikos Panayi

Innovative approaches can help students become more empathetic and skilled at decision-making as well as better historians

A look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Even in a post-pandemic era of STEM and vocational education, the study of history must remain an option for all, says Sir Keith Burnett

Faculty must draw on abilities they have developed in the classroom to steer administrators in the right direction, says Karen Spierling

Our regular look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Gabriel Paquette is impressed by an ambitious account of how a continent has kept trying to reinvent itself after major wars

Making historic ‘misrepresentations’ a reportable offence could affect even overseas study   

Matthew Flinders finds the solutions offered in an ambitious analysis of American discontent less than impressive 

Tributes paid to ‘the best thing that’s happened to Cornell in the last half-century’

Scholars fear threat of lawsuits is deterring academics from exploring Polish complicity in genocide

A look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Kristen Ghodsee applauds a journalist’s essay collection that offers sharp insights into post-communist eastern Europe

The author and historian on how a story about a young cavewoman inspired her and the books that bring London’s everyday past to life  

Lincoln Allison enjoys a broad, sometimes speculative account of the mania for written constitutions that took hold in the 1750s

Tributes paid to a Holocaust scholar who also produced an ‘immensely moving’ account of his traumatic childhood

Our regular look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Controversial journal paper stirs debate on Asian wartime slavery

‘Insufficient evidence’ for Warwick historian’s allegation that concentration camp survivor had lesbian affair with SS guard, university panel says

Ann Hughes enjoys a set of sharp, wide-ranging essays by a historian who revolutionised our understanding of early modern Europe

Tributes paid to ‘intelligent, witty and compassionate leader’ who transformed Canadian studies and forged a major new collegiate university 

Emily Michelson is fascinated by an illuminating study of how architecture expressed power and shaped people’s lives 

Invaluable Mao era materials will be digitised on an open-access platform

Tributes paid to a prolific and ‘fun-loving’ historian with a sharp eye for ‘the inanities of academic life’

Catherine Clinton enjoys a rich analysis of how the echoes of America’s bloodiest war still resound today

If we can’t find the narrative forms to make the world real to one another, we risk losing our politics to the fantasists and cynics, says Lyndsey Stonebridge

Richard Joyner enjoys a vivid account of a larger-than-life scientist and reflects on whether Haldane’s career would be possible today

The former professor of imperial and global history and author of Unlocking the World: Port Cities and Globalization in the Age of Steam on old favourites, empire and commerce, and horse power

A. W. Purdue is impressed by a dazzling analysis of the human capacity for violence and how it has moulded our lives

An honest national conversation about the murky origins of Greek life is a prerequisite for a better future, says Taulby Edmondson

Robert Eaglestone has reservations about a pre-eminent historian’s analysis of the continuing myths about the Nazis 

Angelia R. Wilson applauds a wide-ranging survey of American racism but remains unconvinced by the solutions on offer

University teaching should be refocused on promoting the common good, say Al Martinich and Tom Palaima

History reminds us that freedom of speech also implies the right to vocally object to and demonstrate against speakers, says Evan Smith

White House wants ‘patriotic education’ and directly threatens Princeton

The Pulitzer winner on the resilience of slavery and how universities’ fearless truth-seeking is their best tool to tackle their own troubled pasts

Tributes paid to ‘a towering figure in the field of medieval studies’

Clive Bloom finds the rap sheet on an iconic cultural figure frustratingly incomplete

Tributes paid to a ‘stellar academic’ who was also a ‘remarkable activist’ and ‘great adventurer’

The professor of French studies and author of Today Sardines Are Not for Sale: A Street Protest in Occupied Paris explains how exploring small, overlooked episodes brings human drama to history

Roberta Mock is intrigued by a radical account of the currents that have shaken her native city

Tributes paid to a scholar ‘ahead of his time’ in showing how history can ‘mobilise, empower and engage a wider public’

Universities are in a powerful position to help societies address history in a way that informs the present and shapes the future, says Andrew Thompson

The history lecturer and author of Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go discusses her fascination with waste and reuse and how to write about ephemeral themes

Tributes paid to the British academy’s leading expert on Polish literature and culture

The historian and author of The Politics of Humiliation discusses fairy tales and myths, the history of emotions, and the relationships between victim, perpetrators and onlookers

Peter J. Smith applauds a fascinating, if stomach-churning, study of ‘the pongs of the past’

Andrew Delatolla gets a clear overview of the Arab Spring’s effects on the relationships between government and society in the region

Video conferencing is a reasonable substitute for lectures, but that is where it must end, say Robert Zaretsky and George Alliger

Joe Moran is intrigued by a deep history that has gained unexpected relevance at a time of self-isolation

Kieran Williams is impressed by a dialogue about the history of a single country that offers a powerful defence of liberal, constitutional government

In contrast to other countries, philosophers, historians, theologians and jurists have played a major role advising the state as it seeks to loosen restrictions