History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | imperialism

windrush 1

‘More diverse and culturally inclusive’: Post-war immigration and its impact on British culture

In this blog, recent BA (Hons) History with Politics graduate Phil Matthews reflects on the impact immigration has had on British culture in the post-Second World War era. Phil, who wrote the blog as part of his assessment for the second year module ‘Working with the Past’, coordinated by Dr Mike Esbester, describes how many aspects of British culture changed as a result of mass immigration into the country in the latter half of the twentieth century. Britain, Phil notes, transformed into a multi-ethnic society and benefitted massively from immigrants bringing their own country’s cultures with them. The twentieth century normalised the multi-cultural society that we live in today, Phil […]

Continue Reading 0
cape town cropped

Empire and its Afterlives 3: Using primary sources to avoid simplistic narratives of history

This is the third post in the Empire and its afterlives series. The introduction can be found here and the second installment here.   Several students mentioned current debates around #RhodesMustFall in South Africa and the UK and the idea of decolonising the curriculum, in order to reflect on what that might mean for the teaching of colonial history and its legacies. They had worked on a range of publications and reflections on the topic in class, and drew on their own reading as well to inform their discussions of the curriculum. Some students outlined ways in which black history and black political philosophy could be made a full part of […]

Continue Reading 0
Together_Art.IWMPST3158 cropped

Empire and its afterlives 2: How do you teach history with primary sources?

This is the second post in the Empire and its afterlives series. The introduction can be found here. Primary sources represent a wide range of materials which historians can draw on, and students made the most of this diversity. The podcast episodes included discussions of armed forces recruitment posters, political speeches and pamphlets, as well as a board game, a novel, and a series of photographs by a renowned photojournalist. Two of the students selected a recruitment poster from the Second World War as their recommended source, but suggested different ways of including it into the English and Welsh curriculum. Drawing on two articles on active remembrance and military multicultural heritage […]

Continue Reading 0
SCALA_ARCHIVES_1039931700 cropped

Empire and its Afterlives 1: Applying the skills of the historian to the present

This is the first post in a series of four showcasing the work of second year students from across the University of Portsmouth Faculty of Social Sciences Click this link to see a video of George the Poet on the Benin Bronzes Empire and its Afterlives is a module available for second year students across History, Politics, International Development, International Relations and Languages. Newly created for the 2020/2021 academic year by Natalya Vince and Tony Chafer, it encouraged students to draw on research from a range of disciplines in order to better understand empires from a historical perspective, their legacies, and the way they are present and represented around us […]

Continue Reading 0
new recruits cropped

The Fitzroy Report, 1904: How the poor physical condition of Boer War army recruits prompted social change

Following the end of the second Boer War in 1902, the government appointed an Inter-Departmental Committee to investigate why so many would-be recruits had been in poor physical condition. The Committee, chaired by civil servant Almeric FitzRoy, has become known as the Fitzroy Report.  Second-year UoP history student Ben Hessey discusses the report, what it tells us about contemporary ideas about parenting, gender, eugenics and social provision, and its longer-term significance.  This piece was originally written for the second-year Danger! module, which investigates issues of censorship and state control between 1850 and 2000 and is taught by Dr Rob James and Dr Mike Esbester. During the early twentieth century the […]

Continue Reading 6
maxresdefault

La Marseillaise: has the song that unified the French republic become too divisive?

David Andress, Professor in Modern History at Portsmouth, has recently published an article in The Conversation on the recent controversies surrounding the French national anthem, La Marseillaise. Dave is a historian of the French Revolution, and of the social and cultural history of conflicts in Europe and the Atlantic world more generally in the period between the 1760s and 1840s. Dave teaches across the undergraduate degree, and currently delivers core teaching on methodologies, as well as contributing his specialist knowledge of eighteenth-century and revolutionary France to first- and third-year modules. To read the article, click here

Continue Reading 0