What’s new in BBIH?
The October 2026 update to the Bibliography of British and Irish History adds 4,035 new publications. The new update includes books, journal articles, book chapters from edited collections and history theses covering all areas of British and Irish history, from 55 BCE to the present day. This now means that BBIH contains 688,190 records.
The October 2026 update includes:
History titles published between 2016-2026
- 3,678 new titles have been added.
Local histories of Britain and Ireland
3,440 publications were added including:
- 316 publications relating to Scottish history.
- 98 titles about the history of Wales.
- 1,520 publications relating to the history of England.
- 417 publications focusing on Irish history, including 56 publications focusing on Northern Ireland.
Global histories of the British and Irish worlds
802 new records with the BBIH subject term ‘Imperial and Commonwealth’ were added including:
- 296 records discuss the histories of the Americas.
- 413 records refer to histories of Asia.
New keywords in the BBIH subject tree
As part of their BBIH internships, Gaverne Bennett, Dr Eloise Grey and Dr Leah Veronese reviewed the keywords in BBIH’s unique subject tree related to imperial, colonial, commonwealth and indigenous histories and the History of Emotions. The purpose of this was twofold:
- To review existing keywords in BBIH’s subject tree to ensure that the language used continues to be appropriate, inclusive and relevant for historians working in these fields.
- To identify new and emerging topics and historical methods imperative for studying, teaching and researching these histories that were missing from BBIH’s subject tree.
Many new keywords were published in the October 2026 update to the Bibliography including:
- Indigenous knowledge and thought
- Emancipation from slavery
- Postcolonialism
- Intimacy
- Courting and dating
- Positive emotions and feelings such as happiness and pleasure, and love and affections.
Environmental histories in BBIH
BBIH contains almost 18,000 publications related to the environment ranging from specific types of environments, environmental policy, and historical attitudes to conservation. The October 2026 update contains 251 new publications and you can discover more about this area of research by exploring our free online reading list.
Dr Zoë Jackson also recently completed an internship at the IHR, focusing on environmental histories in BBIH. As a result of their internship, we’ve recently published Zoë’s:
- New tutorial video focusing on how to use BBIH to research environmental histories. This video is available to view on our page of online tutorials and the IHR’s YouTube channel.
- Accompanying blog piece, in which they discuss how they used two petitions as a starting point to reflect on environmental history as a field, and BBIH’s usefulness for researching environmental histories.
About the Bibliography of British and Irish History
The Bibliography of British and Irish History (BBIH) is the largest and most comprehensive guide available to what’s been written about British and Irish history, from the early 1900s to the present day.
It’s an essential resource for research and teaching, providing up-to-date information (and links) on over 680,000 history books, articles, chapters, edited collections and theses. New records are added in three annual updates. These records are searchable by a wide range of facets including: title, author, chronology, date and form of publication, historical topic and geographical region.
The Bibliography is a research project of the UK’s Institute of Historical Research (IHR) and our publisher Brepols.
BBIH is a subscription service and is available remotely via university and research libraries worldwide. Individual subscriptions are also available for personal use including substantially reduced rates for:
- IHR Friends and Fellows.
- Royal Historical Society Fellows and members.
- Members of the British Association for Local History.