On History
News, articles & research from the
Institute of Historical Research
Latest posts
Environmental History in the IHR Library’s Collections
This post was written by Michael Townsend, Collections and Metadata Librarian at the Institute of Historical Research Library. The library has recently published a new collection guide about environmental history. Here researchers can get an overview of the resources...
World Newspaper Trials in the IHR Library
We are currently trialling two Readex World Newspaper Archive resources: Ethnic American Newspapers from the Balch Collection, 1799-1971 and South Asian Newspapers, 1864-1922. These are available until 19 November within the IHR library.
A Preview of History Day 2021: Environmental History and more
Kate Wilcox from the IHR’s Wohl Library and Argula Rublack from Senate House Library describe plans for November’s History Day and show how to sign up for the event. History Day is a free, one-day event which brings people interested in history together with history collections from archives, libraries and other organisations.
Spotlight
Conflict and climate change in the Arctic: what the seventeenth century suggests about the future
By Dagomar Degroot Environment & History, essay no. 13 In the final article of our ‘Environment & History’ series, Professor Dagomar Degroot looks to early modern climate change to ask whether arctic warming necessarily results in violent...
Features & Articles
Elizabethan Witchcraft, Sorcery, and a Very Troubled Marriage
Ahead of their new book 'Star Chamber Matters', Professor K. J. Kesselring (Dalhousie) dives into some of Star Chamber’s most riveting cases including this article on, marriage, ‘male witches’ and a grieving house-wife. An extraordinary court that ruled from the...
IHR Centenary Global Birthday Event: Reflections on History Past, Present and Future
On Thursday 8 July 2021, the IHR celebrated its 100th birthday, with a day of online celebrations taking us from Australia and South East Asia, to Africa and the Middle East, to Europe and North America. What did we learn about history today and in the future? The...
Christmas Under Cromwell: The Hidden Religious Festivals of Interregnum Britain
In this post Dr Rosalind Johnson introduces her chapter in Church and People in Interregnum Britain, published by University of London Press on 23 June. Edited by Dr Fiona McCall, the book provides a comprehensive account of every-day life, society and religion in the...
The IHR’s Reviews in History
The IHR’s Reviews in History publishes weekly commentaries on new books. Our reviews are longer than those in many academic journals and focus on titles published in the last year. ‘Reviews’ will be taking a break during July and the first half of August, but look...
Publications News
Town before Gown – Oxford before the University
This is the last in Joe Chick's series of historic town walks using the Victoria County History’s app for mobile devices. ‘A History of English Places’ brings the VCH’s histories together with first edition Ordnance Survey mapping across England. Learn more here. With...
Freedom Seekers in Restoration London
Ahead of the publication of his new book Simon Newman explores the African and South Asian people who sought to escape enslavement in seventeenth-century London. His name was Quamy. His Akan day-name suggests that he came from the region of West Africa that we...
Elizabethan Witchcraft, Sorcery, and a Very Troubled Marriage
Ahead of their new book 'Star Chamber Matters', Professor K. J. Kesselring (Dalhousie) dives into some of Star Chamber’s most riveting cases including this article on, marriage, ‘male witches’ and a grieving house-wife. An extraordinary court that ruled from the...
London coffee houses of the late eighteenth century
Anna Brinkman-Schwartz’s latest article 'The heart of the maritime world: London’s ‘mercantile’ coffee houses in the Seven Years’ War and the American War of Independence, 1756–83' (open access) is published in the latest issue of Historical Research. Here she...
Research & Resources News
Town before Gown – Oxford before the University
This is the last in Joe Chick's series of historic town walks using the Victoria County History’s app for mobile devices. ‘A History of English Places’ brings the VCH’s histories together with first edition Ordnance Survey mapping across England. Learn more here. With...
Guided Reading – Berkshire’s County Town on the Eve of the Dissolution
Dr Joe Chick invites us to join him in Reading to explore the monastic influences still visible in the Berkshire town. This walk uses the app, ‘A History of English Places’ from the Victoria County History and Aimer Media.
Boats and Buses – The Stories behind Bristol’s Streetscapes
Dr Joe Chick explores Bristol, a city on the boundaries of the English Midlands and the south west, a port that dominated trade with France, Ireland and Wales throughout the Middle Ages and Early Modern periods, but whose more recent histories are defined in relation to the legacies of the Atlantic slave trade.
Brews, Spring, Steam – The Georgian Spa Town of Buxton, Derbyshire
By Joe Chick Having explored the histories of Kenilworth, Colchester and Coventry, Dr Joe Chick arms himself with ‘A History of English Places’, the App for mobile devices developed by the Victoria County History (VCH) with Aimer Media. In this blog, he heads to...