Category: Archive

  • The It-Narrative as Material Culture Methodology: Practical Applications for Historians

    The It-Narrative as Material Culture Methodology: Practical Applications for Historians

    By Kerry Love (@kerrymlove) A popular novel format in the eighteenth century was the ‘it-narrative,’ or ‘novel of circulation,’ whereby the story was told by an inanimate object, such as a coin, quill or a coach, or an animal such as a pet dog, in first person. Their treatment in literary studies has been covered…

  • Book Review – The Night Trains by Charles van Onselen

    Book Review – The Night Trains by Charles van Onselen

    Nicole Sithole reviews Charles van Onselen’s The Night Trains: Moving Mozambican Miners to and from South Africa, 1902-1955 (Jonathan Ball, 2019), £25.00. The Night Trains is a riveting account of the gruesome experiences of black men from the Sul du Save in Mozambique, on board ghostly night trains which transported them back and forth to…

  • Max Long – Historian Highlight

    Max Long – Historian Highlight

    By Max Long (@max_long), interviewed by Cherish Watton (@CherishWatton), Series Editor Historian Highlight is a new series sharing the research experiences of historians in the History Faculty in Cambridge. We ask students how they came to research their topic, their favourite archival find, as well as the best (and worst) advice they’ve received as academics…

  • International Commonwealths: Public Diplomacy in 17th Century Europe

    International Commonwealths: Public Diplomacy in 17th Century Europe

    By Basil Bowdler (@BasilBowdler) When allegations of Russian interference in the Brexit referendum and US general election of 2016 surfaced, it struck many as a new and disturbing development in public politics. But in reality, foreign powers have been attempting to manipulate public opinion to their own ends for much longer. In seventeenth-century Europe, as…