History

Recently reading James Boswell’s London Journal I came across a period when due to Gonorrhoea, Boswell decided to isolate himself from the rest of the world and society at large apart from a few select individuals who were permitted to see him. Boswell is most famous for his work as a diarist and biographer. His […]

History is all about stories. The stories we tell ourselves about the past. The stories we tell ourselves about the past, about our communities, about ourselves. The British Museum’s vast and world-famous collections hold multiple examples of stories around the globe. Some of these stories are easily accessible to us via the objects. Others are […]

Matthew McCormack from History at UON has published a book on Georgian shoes. Shoes and the Georgian Man is published by Bloomsbury. It is a full-colour book with around 80 illustrations, including images of many of the shoes that Matthew studied during his research. The book is available in paperback, hardback and ebook formats via […]

In 1980, Terry Jones, actor, presenter, writer and Monty Python member, published what has become something of a literary event. Chaucer’s Knight: Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary is a book that had medieval historians foaming at the mouth for many a year afterwards. It generated much debate and forever altered the landscape of the knightly class and […]

The University of Northampton History department is home to the Searchlight Archive, a unique archive collection of material documenting the activities of British and international fascist and racist organisations from the 1930s onwards. It is one of the most extensive and significant resources of its type in Europe. Daniel Jones, the Searchlight Collections Officer recommends: […]

Pisces and Diagram for Friday (left) and Libra and Taurus (right) in an Astronomical Miscellany, shortly after 1464, German. Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig XII 8 (83.MO.137), fols. 56v-57 As an (elder) Millennial, my generation loves a horoscope – while the generation that followed us, Gen Z, are markedly more sceptical about astrology. Most of my […]

On the 8 May 1968 a series of dawn raids were carried out by ‘more than 100’ Metropolitan Police detectives, led by DS Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read. The target of these raids was organized criminal gang that surrounded two East End gangsters that have passed into London folklore and garnered more column inches, True Crime books […]

The Cratchits sit down to Christmas dinner  If, like me, you tuned in to watch the BBC’s latest adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol, I’m sure it will have left a lasting impression.  Over three nights a star-studded cast presented a much darker version of the tale of Scrooge than we are used […]

Senior lecturer Mark Rothery writes about his recent interactions with the media, and what that means for historical research. Mark also discussed some of these themes on TALKRadio –select the 4:30-5:00 clip and go to three minutes in.  On 4th February this year the new Times Online history correspondent published an article called ‘Snowflakes are […]

[No spoilers!] I’m a big fan of the Alien film series. I have been hooked every since watching Alien 3 in the cinema as a teenager, and the original 1979 film is one of my all-time favourites. So I was excited to see Alien: Romulus, which is currently on general release. After several disappointing sequels […]

The Northampton branch of the Historical Association is run by the University of Northampton, and this year we are joining forces with the Leicester branch to provide a combined programme. The joint talks will be online but we are also keen to hear from local schools who would like to host an event. All talks […]

This Halloween, senior lecturer Caroline Nielsen explores the sad story of a spooky storyteller… A young woman is sitting in a chair reading a story which has made her nervous. Engraving by R. Graves after R.W. Buss. Credit: Wellcome Collection. This is the time of year when most of us begin to think about ghost […]

Matthew McCormack from History has co-edited a new book on new approaches to teaching the subject. Co-edited with Ruth Larsen (Derby) and Alice Marples (British Library), Innovations in Teaching History: Eighteenth-Century Studies in Higher Education is now out with University of London Press. The book contains seven chapters, which provide case studies for how to […]

Dominic Cummings has been in the news lately, you may have noticed. He drove, whilst infected with COVID-19, from Islington to County Durham, with his family. He then took them on a tour of County Durham, whilst infected, and after having been discovered defended his actions, supported by the PM and the government he advises. […]