19 February 2015
At last, a feature film that looks at Martin Luther King and Civil Rights – and very good it is too. But is Selma a great film? Does it compare to 12 Years a Slave? In my view…
16 February 2015
The surprise pre-emptive air attack by the Japanese on the American Pacific Fleet in their base at Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii, on December 7th 1941 had momentous consequences. In a day which President Franklin Roosevelt said would…
11 February 2015
On 4th of July 1776 the Declaration of Independence, a document drafted by Thomas Jefferson and other ‘framers,’ declared that the 13 former British colonies now formed the first independent nation of the Western world. Alongside the Constitution,…
30 January 2015
Doing history is often a process of digging beneath the surface, of uncovering stories, people and events that have been hidden from view to give a better understanding of the past. It also often involves challenging simplistic interpretations…
15 December 2014
There is a fascinating interview with Professor Angela Davis, former Black Panther and once one of America’s “ten most wanted”, in today’s Guardian “G2″section that covers a number of historical topics and reminds us yet again –…
10 November 2014
In the United States, November has officially been Native American Heritage Month for nearly a quarter of a century. However, beyond the borders of the US this commemmoration struggles to generate the attention of its predecessor, Black History Month….
7 November 2014
There will be a lot of raking through Tuesday’s mid-term election results in America with a view to guessing the future and also making comparison’s with the past. Already it is being suggested that the successive losses in…
9 October 2014
What is it to ‘do’ public history? This is a question our students are asked to address in a number of different modules and which I was forced to ask myself as a result of attending a couple…
9 July 2014
Following on from their attendance at the British Library and Eccles Centre event commemorating 50 years since the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, which you can read about here, Prof. Neil Wynn and Dr Christian…
8 July 2014
On 7th July Dr. Christian O’Connell and Professor Neil Wynn took part in a symposium at the Eccles Centre at the British Museum on “The Civil Rights Act 50 Years On” followed by a lecture by Professor William P….