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Breaking down barriers: are political thought history and public history irreconcilable?
By Zoe Alipranti (@ZAlipranti) Making historical subjects accessible to a wider audience is an important part of public history. Some public history writers target readers seeking to escape everyday life by immersing themselves in the fascinating stories of the past. Works on the history of political thought might not be an obvious choice here. Tales of medieval chivalry,…
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A tale of two cultures: a historian’s guide to Bolzano
By Zoe Farrell (@zoeffarrell) As part of my research fieldwork this year, I was lucky enough to be able to visit the city of Bolzano in Northern Italy. This South-Tyrolean city provides a perfect example of how small, provincial cities often have rich and diverse histories which make them prime points of study for enquiries…
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‘Go with your gut’? Reason and passion from the eighteenth century to the present day
By Madeleine Armstrong If you’ve ever had to make a difficult choice, you’ll be familiar with the nauseating conflict between the head and the heart. You may have drawn a dozen pros-and-cons lists, only to go with the option that simply felt right. We are accustomed to seeing reason and passion in conflict, and always…
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The Great British Summer? A Historical Heatwave
By Helen Sunderland (@hl_sunderland) ‘The Weather for some Days past is said by the Curious in such Observations, to have been several Degrees hotter than for these four Years past.’[1] As I write this piece under another cloudless Cambridge sky with temperatures soaring well into the high twenties, this July 1757 report from the London…
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Digging up coals, Down Under
By Matthew DJ Ryan Growing up I would often take the eight-hour train ride from my home town in the ‘bush’ (country) down to Sydney, Australia. For at least half of that trip the train would zip past coal mine after coal mine, sharing the tracks with cargo trains carrying their fossilized loads, often hundreds…
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