7 September 2016
On the face of it this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival does not offer a great deal of interest to the student of history. Yes, there are sessions on Rethinking the Somme, the Great War, Cheltenham in the Great…
13 June 2016
Having just been to see Race, the (rather boring, I have to say) bio-pic about the great African American athlete, Jesse Owens, I found myself thinking about people like Owens, and Joe Louis, and contrasting them with Muhammad…
9 June 2016
This Friday will witness the funeral of Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer in history and a figure whose importance transcended sport. Hundreds will attend his funeral and many thousands more around the world will mourn his passing because…
16 February 2016
Last Saturday, while on my four month stay in the USA, I took the opportunity to visit the nearby International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. This museum is in the Woolworth building, which holds a special…
29 January 2016
This weekend I leave for Elon in North Carolina, where I will be spending four months teaching and researching as part of the Fulbright-Elon Scholar Award 2015-16. I was delighted to receive this award as I would have…
19 January 2016
Thank you and well done to all of the Level 6 students who presented their posters at History Dissertation Day on 14 January at the Wilson Art Gallery and Museum in Cheltenham. You’ve made us all proud! Thanks…
18 January 2016
How often is “Happy Birthday”, the song by Stevie Wonder, played to celebrate people’s birthdays? It features quite a lot on Radio 2 … but how many people realise the song was written by Wonder in 1981 as…
15 January 2016
Students took part in the first ever History Dissertation Day at The Wilson Gallery in Cheltenham. January can be a very stressful time for third-year students approaching the final few months of their undergraduate studies. Weighing heavy on…
17 December 2015
I’m delighted to be able to come to Gloucestershire next semester, where I’ll be teaching two courses, ‘The Quest for Equality: Civil Rights in the USA, 1930-70’ and ‘Democracy, Freedom and Slavery: the USA, 1776-1865’, as well as…
4 December 2015
The commemorations this week of the arrest of Mrs Rosa Parks on 1st December 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, remind us that historians often seem to be obsessed with remembering “great” people or “key” moments in History. For many…