British history

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• 1/9/2022
  

  A Walk Around the "Wood that Built London"

  by C.J. Schüler

  The remnants of the North Wood outside London posed a mystery of cartographical history to the author: how to reconstruct the forest that was timbered to build the metropolis.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/4/2022
  

  Britain to Enable Pardons, Expunge Records for Persons Convicted of Same-Sex Contact Under Repealed Laws

  “It is only right that where offences have been abolished, convictions for consensual activity between same-sex partners should be disregarded too,” British Home Secretary Priti Patel said in a statement.

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• SOURCE: New Statesman
  12/8/2021
  

  Historians are Soft Targets in the Culture War. They Need to Fight Back

  by David Olusoga

  "Historians should repeatedly point out that the 'rewriting of history' is not some act of professional misconduct but literally the job of professional historians."

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  11/15/2021
  

  Colin Morris, 1928-2021

  Colin Morris identified the beginnings of the concept of individualism two centuries earlier than had previously been believed, part of a career of groundbreaking scholarship on the Middle Ages. 

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• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  11/1/2021
  

  Boris Johnson’s Roman Fantasies

  by Mateusz Fafinsky

  Boris Johnson's recent statements that the collapse of Rome was caused by open borders are well out of step with historical understanding of the fragmenting of the Roman empire, but in line with a long legacy of political misappropriation of Rome as an allegory for the danger of immigrants.

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• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  10/12/2021
  

  Academic and Amateur Historians Clash over Location of 1,000 Year-Old Battle

  "In Britain, historians love to fight over battle sites, but few elicit such stridence and obsession as Brunanburh. There are more than 30 proposed locations for the battle, which took place in 937, and helped shape what would become England."

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  9/28/2021
  

  Who Owns the Legacy of a Notorious Women's Prison?

  Caitlin Davies' "Bad Girls" tells the history of London's Holloway Prison, which is now in jeopardy from a pending redevelopment plan. 

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• SOURCE: l'Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (INA), France
  8/26/2021
  

  French Documentary Video: British Tory Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg at Age 12 Loved Money and Thatcher, Feared Future Alimony

  A French interviewer and documentary crew interviewed the future Tory leader about his precocious interests in the stock market and his love of Margaret Thatcher.

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  8/16/2021
  

  Britain’s Idyllic Country Houses Reveal a Darker History

  About a third of the historic homes managed by Britain's National Trust have been linked to fortunes made through slavery and colonialism. The agency's efforts to present this history has been controversial. 

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  7/14/2021
  

  The Many Myths of the Term ‘Anglo-Saxon’

  by Mary Rambaran-Olm and Erik Wade

  References to America's "Anglo-Saxon heritage" are often racist dogwhistles, and usually fully detached from the history of the Anglo-Saxon people. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  7/8/2021
  

  What Euro 2020 Has Revealed About Englishness

  Sporting teams are one of the few officially English, as opposed to British, institutions. The national team's multiracial composition and embrace of social and political causes may be advancing a more inclusive form of Englishness. 

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• SOURCE: Irish Times
  5/24/2021
  

  Execution of 13 IRA volunteers in 1921 may have been a war crime, says UCC historian

  "Men should have been treated as prisoners of war, according to historian Gabriel Doherty of University College Cork."

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• 5/2/2021
  

  Another Bite at the Apple: Isaac Newton's Time as a Man of Politics and Economics

  by Patricia Fara

  Isaac Newton's life has been retold according to the values of successive historians. Until now, most have shied away from Newton's second career at the Royal Mint, during which he was part of the growth of a British prosperity that was rooted in colonialism and slavery. 

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• SOURCE: Nursing Clio
  4/29/2021
  

  Mary Seacole and the Politics of Writing Black History in 1980s Britain

  by Margo Williams

  The revival of British interest in the life of Jamaican-Scottish nurse Mary Seacole reflected the rise of a movement by Black British activists to see Black history as a story of struggle, rather than of a color-blind narrative of Britishness. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  4/19/2021
  

  U.N. Panel Calls British Report on Race a Repackaging of ‘Tropes’

  United Nations experts have stated that a recent British government report on racial issues recycles racist tropes and unjustifiably ignores evidence of racial bias and disparities. 

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• SOURCE: HuffPost
  3/31/2021
  

  Slavery ‘Not Just About Profit And Suffering’, UK Government-Backed Race Report Claims

  A new UK government report on the teaching of the history of slavery and empire has controversially suggested that the institution was an exchange of cultures between British and enslaved African and colonized people, further fueling the British culture war over the teaching of history.

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• 4/4/2021
  

  Pamela, Randolph and Winston: The Wartime Discord of the Churchills

  by Josh Ireland

  The recent Royal Family drama had nothing on the relationship of Winston Churchill and his son Randolph, which was thrown into tumult by the younger Churchill's marital problems at the onset of World War II. 

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• SOURCE: The Guardian
  3/12/2021
  

  ‘Imperially Nostalgic Racists’ Target Empireland Author With Hate Mail

  The history of empire has become part of a growing British culture war, particularly since Black and brown British authors and historians have begun to weigh in with critical studies of imperialism. 

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• SOURCE: Der Spiegel
  3/12/2021
  

  Racism, White Supremacy and the British Royal Family

  by Brooke Newman

  The treatment of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle by the royal family is a huge missed opportunity for leadership as denial of racism is growing in Britain. 

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• SOURCE: Open Democracy
  3/2/2021
  

  The UK Government’s Obsession with ‘Culture Wars’ is a Threat to Democracy

  In the British debate over the public history of colonialism and empire, are conservative government ministers the ones really engaged in "cancel culture"?