History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | history

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Could Churchill have done more to prevent the holocaust? The evidence of a personal letter

By on May 27, 2021 in Learning in Focus

Callum Chinn, now in his final year studying history at Portsmouth, wrote this blog piece for the second-year Introduction to Historical Research module last year.  In it, he examines a letter written by Winston Churchill in July 1944, and what it reveals about the allies’ knowledge of and response to the holocaust. The twentieth century witnessed one of the most horrific atrocities of all time, the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis across Europe; known worldwide as the Holocaust. With a ‘recent estimate that 5.4 million to 5.8 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust’, it raises questions about the speed of the allied response to the situation, whether […]

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Poisonous Reading – James Greenwood attacks the Victorian ‘penny dreadful’

By on May 25, 2021 in Learning in Focus

In this piece, written for the Fear and Fun module, taught by Dr Rob James and Dr Karl Bell, second year UoP student Amber Braddick discusses journalist James Greenwood’s exaggerated denouncement of the Victorian ‘penny dreadful’.  Despite such middle-class anxietes over the corrupting influence of cheap print on working class youth, many of their stories strike a highly moralistic tone. James Greenwood’s, A Short Way to Newgate (1874) demonstrates the anxieties felt by the middle classes towards the extremely popular penny dreadfuls during the late 19th Century. The author, Greenwood, is not only writing in an attempt to show other middle and upper class members of society how dangerous this […]

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UoP History research seminar: the attack on female deviance under Godly rule, 1645-1660

By on March 12, 2021 in Events, Research in Focus

    On 10th March 2021 the paper in our UoP History Research seminar series was by UoP history lecturer Dr Fiona McCall, who gave a paper on female deviance during the English interregnum, including fighting in church, sexual harassment, drinking, swearing and cursing, adultery and witchcraft.  This paper has been recorded for those unable to attend on the day, see below. We hope to upload further recordings of History Research papers in the near future. Click here for a link to the recording of the seminar (you will need the password: %MT6U8&S)  

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Josiah King, The Examination and Tryall of Old Father Christmas

Have yourself a puritan Christmas

By on December 16, 2020 in Research in Focus

Dr Fiona McCall is a lecturer in early modern history, teaching units on the British Civil Wars, and Crime, Sin and Punishment in early modern Britain, amongst others. Her current research project investigates traditionalist resistance to puritan values in English parish churches during the 1640s and 1650s, and in this blog she discusses how Christmas was banned during this period. Christmas was officially banned during the late 1640s and 1650s along with the rest of the church calendar.  But the interdict was widely ignored.  Trawling through various counties’ quarter sessions depositions for the period, I have found frequent references to Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, and various saints days, the witnesses (even those testifying […]

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Have yourself a (not quite so) very merry Christmas film

By on December 11, 2020 in Research in Focus

In this blog, UoP Senior Lecturer Rob James reflects on the changing popularity of the, now well-regarded, festive classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Rob tells us that the film’s success was not predetermined, and that it took a mixture of chance and luck, along with a well-told story of course, for the film to achieve its status as a seasonal favourite. Rob’s research covers society’s leisure activities and this feeds into a number of optional and specialist modules he teaches in the second and third year. In a recent poll featured in The Independent newspaper of the ‘Best Christmas Movies’, the 1946 Hollywood-produced film It’s a Wonderful Life came in […]

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Reiss Simms

Top tips for beginning your study of history at Portsmouth

By on October 5, 2020 in Learning in Focus

Reiss Sims, one of last year’s first-year students, offers some great tips for those beginning their study of history at the University of Portsmouth in 2020. “The more you know about the past, the better prepared you are for the future.” – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the U.S. Now let me start off by apologising for the classic “insert quote by famous person” approach to the start of this blog, but I do believe that Roosevelt hit the nail on the head – the study of history provides us with the understanding of the world we live in and outlines the possibilities for change, so congratulations for joining the […]

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