Madagascar is one of the world’s more intriguing destinations. If it is famous for anything – apart from sharing a name with a truly terrible film franchise – it is probably for its wildlife, much of which is found nowhere else. But whereas most people have at least an idea of...

Not everyone loves the capital of the United States. To Ulysses S Grant, it was a ‘pestilential swamp’; to novelist Gore Vidal, a ‘city of the dead’. It is true that Washington still has its problems. The District of Columbia has the highest crime rate in the United States, and the...

“For lust of knowing what should not be known— We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.” So wrote poet James Elroy Flecker in 1913, who had perhaps an unduly romantic view of what motivated many of Uzbekistan’s earlier visitors. A more realistic explanation was proffered in the thirteenth century by the Persian...

Joe Wilkinson takes us on a tour of the island of Zanzibar, where the slave trade continued long after the British abolished it. Mention Zanzibar and most people will think of an Indian Ocean paradise, perfect for honeymooners, relaxing on the popular pristine white north-eastern beaches of Bwejuu and Paje,...

What role do individuals wielding great power play in determining significant historical change? And how do historians locate human agency in historical change, and explain it? These are the issues I would like to reflect a little upon here. They are not new problems. But they are inescapable ones for...

Terry Bennett provides an introduction to the earliest surviving photographs of Korea. It is, on the face of it, remarkable how late it was before the camera ventured into Korea. If we accept that photography effectively began with Louis Daguerre’s invention in 1839, it was a full 32 years later,...

In this podcast Professor Edward MacDonald of the University of Prince Edward Island discusses the origins of the Charlottetown Conference of 1864, Canadian Confederation and the development of Canada over the 20th Century.

An HA Podcasted History of Modern China  featuring Dr Yangwen Zeng of the University of Manchester, Professor Rana Mitter and Professor Patricia Thornton of the University of Oxford and Professor Arne Westad of the London School of Economics. 

An HA Podcasted History of Russia and the USSR featuring Dr Beryl Williams, Dr Jonathan Davis of Anglia Ruskin University, Dr Edwin Bacon of Birkbeck University of London and Professor Peter Waldron of the University of East Anglia.

An HA Podcasted History of the British Empire 1800-Present featuring Dr Seán Lang of Anglia Ruskin University, Dr John Stuart of Kingston University London, Professor A. J. Stockwell and Dr Larry Butler of the University of East Anglia.

An HA Podcasted History of the Cold War featuring Dr Elena Hore of the University of Essex, Dr Matthew Grant of Teeside University, Dr Holger Nehring of the University of Sheffield, Dr Michael Shin of the University of Cambridge, Professor Mark White of Queen Mary University of London, Professor Charles...

In this set of podcasts Emeritus Professor W. A. Speck of the University of Leeds looks at the life and ideas of Thomas Paine.

A quarter-century on from 1989-91, with a large amount of archive and media material available, these epic years are ripe for historical analysis. Yet their proximity to our time also throws up challenging questions about the practice of ‘contemporary history’, and the complexity of events raises larger issues about how...

Populism, Progressivism and Trumpism: third party, inter-party and intraparty candidates in campaigns for the American presidency Michael Dunne explores the complexities of American presidential political campaigning over the last 200 years. Vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Since these words were first...

Introduction Shortly after noon on 20 January 2009 Barack Obama began his historic Inaugural Address as 44th President of the United States of America. On the west porch of the Capitol, home to the US Congress, and under propitiously blue skies, the first African American president spoke before more than...

In February, 1907, the Canadian government’s most northerly regional emigration office in the British Isles opened for business in Aberdeen. Located near the city centre, only a stone’s throw from the docks and the railway station, it soon fulfilled the expectation that it would capture the attention of a large...

When the Bolsheviks seized power in what was essentially a carefully organised coup d’état in October 1917, they seized control only of the levers of central power in the then capital, Petrograd, which had already become the centre of working-class discontent. What they most emphatically did not do was to...

Patrick J Pead writes about a truly remarkable woman whose contribution to advances in medicine deserves far wider recognition. Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live...

The story of the British in India is a complex one and further nuances are provided by the existence of several ‘Eurasians’ who had both British and Indian heritage. Here Arunansh Goswami reflects on the life and achievements of one of these, James Skinner, who had a Scottish father and an Indian...

Our series ‘Real Lives’ seeks to put the story of the ordinary person into our great historical narrative. We are all part of the rich fabric of the communities in which we live and we are affected to greater and lesser degrees by the big events that happen on a daily...