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Plunging into industrial archives
by Marta Musso When I think of classicists spending hours trying to analyse what is left of a civilisation from a few words on a stone that survived centuries of rain, I pat myself on the back for deciding to specialise in contemporary history. It actually feels like cheating: not only are sources everywhere and…
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Foreign Archives: how to plan your visit?
by Florence Largillière Archives seem to feature prominently in our blog, but this is not without reason. Talking about archives and how historians deal with them is useful on two main levels. We hope to give some guidelines to new research students – as obvious as some of them may be. And we want to…
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British Identity in Fascist Italy
by Konstantin Wertelecki Konstantin Wertelecki is an MPhil student in Modern European History at the University of Cambridge. In June 1940, British citizens Mr. and Mrs. Waterfield drove to the Florence railway station, just in time to catch the last train to France before Italy declared war on Britain. Bizarrely, this was their second escape…
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The (not so) Secret Vatican Archives: A Practical Guide for Researchers
In the first of our posts on doing research abroad, Fred Smith (@Fred_E_Smith) explores the Secret Vatican Archives. Aliens? Illuminati secrets? Devices that can see into the future? It seems that no conspiracy theory is too far-fetched for those who speculate what may be hidden within the vaults of the Archivum Segretum Vaticanum. [1] Indeed, the…
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‘In fair Verona, where we lay our scene’ – my research reconnaissance mission
In the third of our series on research abroad, Zoe Farrell (@zoeffarrell) scopes out Verona. One of the most exciting yet intimidating elements of PhD research is the archival visit. This is perhaps particularly daunting for those of us venturing to foreign pastures and putting into practice hard-earned language skills. However, the rewards of navigating the…
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