Taradiddles. Or, lies in a post-truth society

by | 27 Feb 2020 | Guest Posts

There is nothing new in our lack of trust in information and facts. But how does this affect archives and researchers? Julia Sheppard, Chair of the British Records Association, considers some of the questions that have arisen in recent events. Damned Lies In his...

Beyond this Day – 29 January 1838: Indian Indentured Trade and ‘The First Crossing’

by | 29 Jan 2020 | Guest Posts

Empires are defined by movement—whether of goods, ideas or peoples. Bringing sugar to the metropolitan plate has a long and complicated history, involving labour migration across continents, instances of plantation brutality, slavery, and other forms of unfree labour....

How Can Historians Achieve Inclusivity in Digital Archives?

by | 16 Dec 2019 | Guest Posts

Historians have always been preoccupied with archives of knowledge – how information is stored and categorised, how it is accessed or restricted, how the integrity of evidence is determined. These are universal questions for those who study the past. They also...

Historians, wildlife, and habitats

by | 19 Nov 2019 | Guest Posts

Why do we study the past? One reason is to understand the present, and how the things we think of as ‘normal’ developed out of very different pasts. At a time of mounting concern about the state of the environment, Tom Williamson argues that understanding the...

Co-production, Crowd-sourcing & the History of Railway Casualties

by | 12 Nov 2019 | Guest Posts

The Railway Work, Life & Death project has been  using crowd-sourcing and working with volunteers to co-produce research questions and topics. In this post for the RHS, the project team of Karen Baker, Mike Esbester and Helen Ford share a great example of how...

Historians and Sustainability

by | 31 Oct 2019 | Guest Posts

How can historians respond to the demands of a career that can be both environmentally – and emotionally – unsustainable? In this post for the RHS, Toby Green and Simon Sleight introduce their working paper on “Historians and Sustainability”....