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In praise of grandmothers (and oral histories)
By Louise Moschetta @LouiseMoschetta I’m not entirely sure whether I owe my interest in history to my grandmother but she certainly helped. Her house, which until very recently she still lived in, was built in 1972 and hasn’t changed much since. Walking through it has almost always been, with certain exceptions such as an ever larger…
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Wanted: A More Complicated History of Belgium’s Congolese ‘Heart of Darkness’
by Eva Schalbroeck Whenever I say that I study the history of Belgian imperialism in the Congo, most people confess to not knowing that Belgium had a colony. Others describe it as a particularly nasty and violent episode’. My explanations of ‘it’s far less black-and-white’ or ‘it’s complicated’ often confuse more than they illuminate. Popular media…
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‘Our story remains unwritten’: the ethics of writing histories across cultures
by Tom Smith What does it mean to write a history of a culture other than our own, and how do we do this sensitively? This is an issue upon which historians rarely reflect explicitly. My dual passions for American history and Pacific Ocean history have been fuelled not by any particular personal investment or…
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Identifying and removing barriers to digital history
By Carys Brown, James Baker, Richard Deswarte, Adam Crymble Originally posted on the Defining Effective Mentorship in Digital History site. What factors are preventing academics from learning the digital skills that could enhance their research? A diverse group of twenty scholars consisting of postgraduate students and academic staff, assembled in Cambridge this past month to find…
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Dying Declarations – Last Words in the hands of Historians
By Alex Wakelam @A_Wakelam In May 1906 the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen lay in his sick bed. That evening an old friend arrived from town to see the aged tragedian. Entering the room he greeted the nurse with “How is Mr Ibsen today?” “Oh”, she cheerily replied, “he’s doing much better.” At this Ibsen sat up…
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