Peter Scholliers, Vrije Universiteit Brussel peter.scholliers@vub.be Until recently, the life of working-class families in many parts of the world swiveled around bread. Its price and quality dictated daily thoughts, little and big decisions, calorie intake, worries and hopes. High prices and poor quality of bread —often appearing as twins—alternated with periods of low prices and … Continued
Andy Holroyde, University of Huddersfield @AndyHolroyde On 29th April 1946, the doors of the Remploy Factory in Bridgend, Wales opened to admit the company’s very first group of disabled workers. Conceived towards the end of the Second World War, Remploy was established by the British Government to provide sheltered employment – a term used to … Continued
Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin, Cardiff University Kilburn-ToppinJ@cardiff.ac.uk There are few heritage sites as iconic as the Tower of London. For most twenty-first century Londoners and tourists, the Tower is associated with famous prisoners, grisly executions, and the Crown Jewels. To the early modern mind, the Tower had a more varied range of associations. As well as being … Continued
Prof. Chris R. Kyle, Syracuse University & Prof. Jason Peacey, UCL (Editors) chkyle@maxwell.syr.edu j.peacey@ucl.ac.uk Historiography on early modern Britain arguably suffers from two related problems: the divergent approaches of social and political historians; and an inadequate conceptualization of the distinction between – and relationship between – ‘centre’ and ‘locality’. In this situation, there is a … Continued
Kate Brooks, Bath Spa University K.Brooks@bathspa.ac.uk Our local parks and beauty spots may be busy during lockdown, but if you are a cool teenager who knows what TikTok is, you will probably be at a nearby carpark – and on wheels. Since the first lockdown, TikTok and Instagram frequently feature roller skaters, wearing the more … Continued
Imogen Knox, University of Warwick @Imogen_Knox Society has long been troubled by the prevalence of suicide, with concerns around mental health rising through the COVID-19 pandemic. Late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England similarly believed itself to be facing the ‘prodigious frequency’ of ‘diabolical transports of despair, and self-murther’. The devil reaped ‘a plentiful (but most … Continued
Dr Mary Fraser, University of Strathclyde drmaryfraser@aol.com @drmaryfraser https://writingpolicehistory.blogspot.com/ Writing the everyday lives of ordinary people How do you find out about the lives of ordinary people who lived in the past? What kind of evidence do we have? Diaries give detailed accounts of individuals, but not everybody wrote one, so they can only … Continued
Dr Alison Chand, University of the Highlands and Islands alison.chand@uhi.ac.uk Paul Thompson, in his pioneering book, The Voice of the Past: Oral History, wrote that, ‘It is no doubt here – for history in the community – that oral history has its most radical implications’, pointing to the role of oral history in ‘the discovery … Continued
Prof. Robert Gildea, University of Oxford robert.gildea@history.ox.ac.uk ‘But there’s no such thing as transnational resistance!’ exclaimed one of our colleagues at the first meeting of the research team in Belgrade, ‘the Slovak national rising was a national rising!’ The point was well taken. After all, the team was drawn from many different nationalities: French, Dutch, … Continued
Prof. Carolyn Conley, The University of Alabama at Birmingham cconley@uab.edu This book means a great deal to me in part because it was finished after I retired from teaching and moved to a city away from my life at the university. While I miss my students and colleagues, it was liberating to write for … Continued
