British history

• 
• SOURCE: Penguin
  3/21/2023
  

  Kate Strasdin Breaks Down Authenticity on Bridgerton and other Costume Dramas

  A fashion historian examines the accuracy of costuming and other design elements of historical dramas like "Bridgerton." 

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• SOURCE: Al Jazeera
  3/15/2023
  

  Brits Don't Need to Compare Refugee Policy to Nazis—British History is Cruel Enough

  by Priyamvada Gopal

  "As its government demonises undocumented people seeking shelter today, it is worth remembering that Britain has historically been more a refugee-making country than a refugee-taking one."

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• 3/12/2023
  

  How The Irish Saved Wellington at Waterloo

  by Brendan Farrell

  For centuries, the Irish provided manpower to the British military, never more notably than on June 18, 1815. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/30/2023
  

  The Secrets of Bog People

  Scholars have released a comprehensive survey of bodies discovered in bogs, including a database of more than 1,000 bodies from 266 sites spanning approximately 7,000 years of northern European history.  

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• 11/20/2022
  

  Does Novelist Robert Keable Deserve a Reappraisal?

  by Simon Keable-Elliott

  Briefly celebrated in the 1920s, then consigned to posthumous obscurity, the missionary and novelist, whose experiences encompassed the collision of colonialism, war and racism in the British empire, is overdue for rediscovery. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/17/2022
  

  Why Liz Truss Couldn't Channel Margaret Thatcher

  by Robert Ralston

  Truss couldn't claim to present a solution to British decline because she took over as Prime Minister as an insider to a party seen as the agents of that decline. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  10/7/2022
  

  Hilary Mantel, Historian

  by Samuel Clowes Huneke

  The celebrated novelist legacy to scholars is a model for examining psychological complexity and political motivation in the past. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/27/2022
  

  The Ostensibly Apolitical Nature of the Royals Explains Americans' Obsession

  by Suzanne Schneider

  The Royals appeal to an American fantasy of power without politics, in which civility and decorum conceal the process of determining a society's winners and losers. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/19/2022
  

  Queen's Funeral Reflects Centuries of Ritual

  by Emilie M. Brinkman

  Since the rise of the Tudor dynasty, the occasion of a royal funeral has been an opportunity for the successor to demonstrate their authority by ostentation and pomp in remembrance of a predecessor. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/19/2022
  

  When the News of a Royal Death Arrived Slowly, it Changed American History

  by Helena Yoo Roth

  The void of power in the American colonies created by rumor of the death of King George II was critical to loosening the monarchy's claims to rule in North America. 

• 
• 9/18/2022
  

  Boris Johnson's Legacy? It's Complicated

  by Luke Reader

  The British constitution depends on adherence to norms and tradition commonly called the "good chap" principle. Johnson's ministry raised troubling questions about what happens when No. 10 Downing is occupied by a different sort of chap. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/8/2022
  

  Mourn the Queen, Not the Empire

  by Maya Jasanoff

  As the head of the postwar British Commonwealth, the Queen symbolized the effort to put the brakes on the global wave of decolonization, including deadly and secret campaigns of state violence in Northern Ireland, Kenya, and elsewhere.

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  9/11/2022
  

  Queen Elizabeth's Leadership and the Future of the Monarchy

  Historian Arianne Chernock says that much of the late Queen's perception as a successful monarch can be attributed to her embrace of the British value of stoicism and, less positively, of stereotypically feminine qualities. 

• 
• SOURCE: Foreign Policy
  9/12/2022
  

  Queen Not Innocent of Empire's Sins

  by Howard W. French

  "I bear no ill will toward her following her death. Her empire—and empires more generally—though is another matter."

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  9/12/2022
  

  For Many Scholars, Queen's Legacy Inseparable from Colonialism

  Vanderbilt's Moses Ochonu and Wisconsin's Mou Banerjee argue that the Queen's passing calls attention to unfinished business of acknowledging the violence of the British Empire—violence the Queen's image helped to conceal. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  9/11/2022
  

  Have the Tories Moved on from the Royals?

  by David Edgerton

  The Conservative Party has turned toward a right-wing nationalism that has little use for the symbolism of the royals as the head of the wider British Commonwealth. 

• 
• 9/4/2022
  

  Is it Deja Vu All Over Again with "Appeasing Dictators," or Time for A New Lens?

  by Charles Spicer

  Invoking Chamberlain and appeasement is never a particularly useful response to an international crisis. Do the efforts, albeit unsuccessful, of a small group of British diplomatic outsiders to "civilize" leading Nazis, point in a better direction? 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  8/18/2022
  

  Ailing Empires: The Rhetoric of Decline in Britain and the US

  by Jed Esty

  If the US is following behind Great Britain in experiencing the strains of a collapsing empire, can Americans, their leaders, and their thinkers learn any lessons from the comparison and make a post-imperial society that is more humane and less nasty? 

• 
• 8/21/2022
  

  In Search of the Ladies-in-Waiting to Anne Boleyn

  by Sylvia Barbara Soberton

  Paying attention to the women who surrounded Anne Boleyn helps to clarify myths and misunderstandings about her elevation and her demise. 

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  8/4/2022
  

  Revisiting Lady Rochford and Her Alleged Betrayal of Anne Boleyn

  Sylvia Barbara Soberton's new book argues that Jane Boleyn, long blamed for the accusations against her husband George and sister-in-law Anne that led to their deaths, has been unfairly scapegoated.