Jonathan Bell: Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of History at the University of Reading.What historians have come to term ‘liberalism' in an American context has taken on numerous meanings that provide a lens through which to examine broad trends in US history across the twentieth century. From the...

Medieval historian Dr Claire Kennan continued our Virtual Branch series with a local history talk on the building of St James's spire, Louth.  In her talk Kennan traces the important role that Louth's major guilds of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Holy Trinity played in the building of the St James’s spire. Throughout the...

Podcast of Professor Anne Curry, President of the Historical Association. Friday 14th May 2010. Head of the School of Humanities and Professor of Medieval History, Southampton University ‘Re your piece in the Daily Mail, 26 October 2009, on the battle of Agincourt, I was absolutely disgusted at the inference that...

2012 Annual Conference LectureFighting a different war: contesting the place of the queer soldier in the mythology of the Second World WarEmma Vickers: Lecturer in Modern British History University of Reading In the mid-1990s, the queer soldier finally became visible. On the streets, gay rights campaigners led by Peter Tatchell...

Historian and author Martyn Whittock recently gave a lecture for the HA Virtual Branch on 'Mayflower Lives: building a New Jerusalem in the New World'. In 1620, 102 ill-prepared asylum seekers landed two months later than planned, in the wrong place on the eastern coast of North America. By the next summer, half of...

In 1242, the prominent thirteenth-century Jewish financier David of Oxford attempted to divorce his wife, Muriel. In the process, he met with a number of obstacles which seriously hampered his efforts and had far-reaching implications for the Jewish community as a whole. In the end, David had to appeal directly...

In his book of the same name, A short history of Islamic thought, Dr Fitzroy Morrissey provides a concise introduction to the origins and sources of Islamic thought, from its beginnings in the 7th century to the current moment. In this talk he explores the major ideas and introduces the...

In this talk Dr Gabrielle Storey discusses the life and times of Berengaria of Navarre, queen of England, lord of Le Mans, and wife of Richard I. Berengaria of Navarre has been inaccurately labelled as the only queen never to have stepped foot in England. This talk will present new analysis...

Katya Hoyer recently gave a lecture for the HA Virtual Branch on Weltkrieg: the German home front during the First World War and the devastating effects of total war on a divided and insecure society. This talk provides an insight into the First World War that is often overlooked, reminding us that...

In this HA Virtual Branch talk Peter Hounsell drew on his recently published book Bricks of Victorian London, exploring the crucial role brick production played in the creation of Britain's capital and why the important place of bricks in the fabric of the city isn't always obvious. Peter Hounsell has published...

Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time the diversity of the Anglo-Saxon built environment. The book explores how the natural landscape was modified for human activity, and how settlements were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. It also shows how...

In this lecture Professor Mitter uses film and other propaganda works to explore how key events of global history are being represented in China to develop a different understanding of its own past. The talk addresses a number of the factors for this change in how China is reflecting on...

Popular perceptions of life, politics and morality in the Middle Ages are overwhelmingly negative, a far cry from images being developed by historians through their research. This workshop explores how to tweak and change familiar topics (including the reign of Richard III) to create a more historically accurate, positive and...

Tim Jenner, the Ofsted Subject Lead for History, gave a clear and informative keynote session at the Historical Association 2021 virtual annual conference which not only gave a clear picture of what a deep dive in history might involve, but also dispelled myths about what Ofsted would and would not expect to see during a...

As British and Irish migrants sought new lives in the Caribbean, Asia, North America and Australasia, they left a trail of physical remains where settlement occurred. Between the 17th and 20th centuries, gravestones and elaborate epitaphs documented identity and attachment to both their old and new worlds. In this Virtual...

Professor Jan Rüger joined the Virtual Branch on 9th February 2023 to talk about his book Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea, tracing a rich history of contact and conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War. For generations this North Sea island expressed a German...

This secondary workshop took place at at the Historical Association Annual Conference, Chester, May 2019. To teach successfully at GCSE, should you focus your work on practice exam questions? Is boosting grades about re-writing mark-schemes in pupil-friendly language and showing model answers? Success at GCSE involves teaching interpretations properly, not just...

Robert Pike joined the HA Virtual Branch to discuss the research for his latest book Silent Village: Life and Death in Occupied France. This work explores life in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane before, during and after the infamous massacre and destruction by Nazi Germany that took place on 10 June...

In the 1950s, Britain fought a series of brutal wars against insurgents in the colonies of Malaya, Kenya, and Cyprus. How did people at home experience these wars? How did they learn about the use of torture and other unsettling tactics? And how did they respond to this knowledge? In...

Richard Kennett is a senior leader, teacher, blogger, text-book author and member of HA secondary committee. In November 2018, Richard visited the Yorkshire History Forum to talk about his school’s experience of reviewing and re-planning their Key Stage 3 curriculum. This film is of Richard’s keynote speech at the Forum....