History@Portsmouth

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New Publications

BSC First Aid 1972

If you go down to the Archives today …

In this post, Mike Esbester brings us up to date on the book he wrote earlier in the year, marking the 60th anniversary of the British Safety Council – now picked up by The National Archives and health and safety professionals. 2017 marks the 60th anniversary of the British Safety Council, one of the leading organisations aimed at improving health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace, in the UK and beyond. Fortunately the BSC is an organisation attuned to the value of the past, and – as discussed in an earlier post  – has been prepared to put its money where its mouth is, including creating an excellent digital archive , […]

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Men-leaving-DY-Unicorn-Gate

Nationalism, Regionalism and British identity in early 20th century England

Dr Melanie Bassett is a Research Associate for the Port Towns and Urban Cultures project. She also teaches undergraduate units in History. Here she talks about her chapter which is published in the Four Nations Approaches to Modern ‘British’ History. A (Dis)United Kingdom? edited collection, which is out now. In 2015 I gave a paper at the United Kingdom? Four Nations Approaches to Modern ‘British’ History conference which prompted me to look at my research from a different perspective. My PhD thesis (completed at the University of Portsmouth) was entitled The Royal Dockyard Worker in Edwardian England: Culture, Leisure and Empire, and although I briefly considered the role of ‘Englishness’ […]

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jodi

Students in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland

Dr Jodi Burkett is Principal Lecturer in History at Portsmouth, where she teaches on a range of undergraduate units, including Society and Culture in Twentieth Century Europe, Being British After the War: Continuity and Change in British National Identity, 1945-2005, and Students and Youth in Postwar Britain. Jodi researches British national identity and the legacies of empire in the postwar period, and her current work evaluates student anti-racist activism in the 1970s and 1980s. She has recently published an edited collection of chapters on Students in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland. See below for further details. To purchase the book click here. Students in Twentieth-Century Britain and Ireland explores the experiences and activities of students across […]

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libraries1

“Literature acknowledges no boundaries”: Book reading and social class in Britain, c.1930-c.1945

An article on book reading and social class by Dr Robert James, senior lecturer in history at Portsmouth, has recently been published in the Journal of Social History. See below for the abstract, and if you want to read the article, click here. Abstract Sitting down to read a work of fiction was a well-established leisure activity within British society by the early-twentieth century but one that was mainly enjoyed by the country’s more leisured classes. After the First World War, however, changes to the publishing industry’s working practices, coupled with the growth of the “open access” system in public libraries in the 1920s and the spread of twopenny libraries […]

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Sir Hudibras

Laughter as a political weapon after the English Civil Wars.

Dr Fiona McCall is a lecturer in early modern history at Portsmouth, teaching units on the British Civil Wars, and Crime, Sin and Punishment in early modern Britain, amongst others. Her current research project investigates religion in the English parish during the period of Godly rule of the 1640s and 1650s. What do you do if you are utterly defeated in a Civil War, and governed by a religious zealouts who have executed your ruler and are determined to stamp out most of the religious practises you hold dear? Fighting back has proved no use. You can retreat from public life and count what money the sequestrators have left you.  […]

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Historicising the Women’s Liberation Movement – Sue Bruley & Laurel Forster

Dr Sue Bruley, reader in history at Portsmouth, has published a special collection of essays on the Women’s Liberation Movement of the late-twentieth century in the journal Women’s History Review. The collection, co-edited with Dr Laurel Forster, charts the impact of the WLM and evaluates the experiences of the women who participated in this important social movement. Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09612025.2015.1132872?af=R&journalCode=rwhr20

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