Histories of the Present Archives

Radical Books: What is the Sound of Revolution?

Rosa Campbell & Taushif Kara 5 November 202020 January 2023

A new book on Kate Millett's 1979 trip to Iran raises questions about voices unheard or marginalized in the writing of history. Rosa Campbell and Taushif Kara explore.

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The Faces of Trump’s America

Jane Caplan 2 November 202020 January 2023

What does it mean to write a history of the lived experience of injustice and suffering in Trump's America? Jane Caplan examines a life caught in the interstices of Trump's Covid-19 strategy and his attacks on healthcare and public…

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Amy Coney Barrett, Enoch Powell and IVF Politics

Laura Beers 30 October 202020 January 2023

When it comes to IVF politics, have the British been too quick to paint Americans as occupying the anti-scientific fringe? Laura Beers responds after the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court.

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Radical Object: An Algerian Portrait

Dónal Hassett 19 October 202020 January 2023

In December 2019, as Paris was brought to a standstill by a massive public sector strike, I was happily foraging […]

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Radical Object: A Colonial Schoolboy’s Report Card

Sneha Krishnan 7 October 202020 January 2023

VRG Menon spent a lifetime haunted by the power of this report card and attempting to use other forms of capital he had to compensate for it. But Venu – Moo – also dwelled in a world where the report card’s errors became a running…

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Radical Object: Ballymaclinton

Shahmima Akhtar 5 October 202024 November 2022

Shahmima Akhtar explores a postcard from the Irish village of 'Ballymaclinton', a display at the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition in London created to promote an Irish soap brand and a politically white Irish unionism.

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Presencing, or Now That I Am Forever With Child

Sarah Knott 28 September 202012 January 2023

In commissioning this feature, editorial fellow Rachel Moss asked contributors: how can we radically re-imagine the writing of history? Over the next few weeks, our contributors reply with creative new methods, sources and forms that they…

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Sex Work and Police Violence in the Archives

Catherine Phipps 21 September 202031 October 2022

How should historians respond to acts of violence in the official archive? Catherine Phipps considers the life of Samia, an Algerian-French teenager, arguing that the epistemic attacks she faced highlight the urgency of historical work…

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Radical Uncertainty

Julia Laite 16 September 202020 January 2023

The gatekeepers of history have tended to take few risks. Julia Laite argues for a less certain, more quantum kind of history in the latest in our #WritingRadically series.

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The Colonial History of Islamophobic Slurs in Sri Lanka

Shamara Wettimuny 7 September 202029 October 2022

How can racialised and Islamophobic terms in common currency in Sri Lanka today be traced back to British colonial rule in the late nineteenth century? Shamara Wettimuny explores the formation of racialised colonial identities and legacies…

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How Not to Read Bernard Bailyn

Asheesh Siddique 3 September 202020 January 2023

How has the recent passing of the historian Bernard Bailyn become a new weapon for conservatives attacking critically engaged approaches to history? Asheesh Siddique explores.

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Police, Press & Race in the Notting Hill Carnival ‘Disturbances’

Jessica White 31 August 202029 October 2022

On the 7th May 2020, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK, news broke that this year’s […]

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Radical Object: The Black Report

Grace Redhead & Jesse Olszynko-Gryn 25 August 202020 January 2023

The Black Report, a landmark critique of health inequalities that barely discussed ‘race’, turns forty today. Grace Redhead and Jesse Olszynko-Gryn investigate the legacy of the report for the age of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter.

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Beyond the Nuclear: The Caribbean Family

Leighan Renaud 12 August 202031 October 2022

What models of love and support get lost if we cling to a linear model of family life? Leighan Renaud calls for a model of genealogical enquiry rooted in a decolonised, expansive and 'matrifocal' understanding of the Caribbean family.

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The ‘crisis’ over academic freedom from the 1970s to the 2020s

Evan Smith 10 August 202029 October 2022

After the recent release of the Policy Exchange's controversial report on 'Academic freedom in the UK', Evan Smith argues that the 'crisis' over free speech is nothing new. Debates over 'no platforming' have a much longer history than is…

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Covid-19: The End of Homelessness?

David Christie 3 August 202020 January 2023

What opportunities does COVID-19 present for ending homelessness? David Christie argues that the achievements of New Labour’s Rough Sleepers Unit can provide a starting point for progressive policy building in the wake of the pandemic.

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Catching the Activist Archivist Fever

Jack Howarth 27 July 20205 November 2022

The archive has been portrayed by historians for many years as a ‘magical’ place of neutral enquiry. In fact, it has historically been used in the perpetuation of many abuses by the state and continues to play a role in privileging some…

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COVID-19 and Facemask Diplomacy

Michael Jennings 23 July 202020 January 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic sheds light on the history of "facemask diplomacy", in which contagion and epidemic become prisms through which power rivalries, tensions and aspirations are conducted – international politics wearing a facemask.

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Rock Star Individualism?

Will Rees 20 July 20207 January 2023

Where have rock stars gone, asks Will Rees in this examination of a pop cultural movement's philosophical underpinnings.

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Borders and Beyond

Peter Leary 13 July 202029 October 2022

In the latest from our series on "Radical History after Brexit", Peter Leary asks how we can think beyond borders in an age of both globalisation and national retrenchment.

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Shackles and Handcuffs: The ‘Special Relationship’ of Racist Policing

Joseph Yannielli and Christine Whyte 9 July 202013 January 2023

A culture of hyper-vigilantism and the conflation of skin colour with criminality did not begin with the abolition of slavery or with the current age of mass incarceration. Joseph Yannielli and Christine Whyte explore its 18th-century…

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Enoch Powell, The Coronavirus and The Nation

Satya Gunput 6 July 20207 January 2023

Analogies to the Second World War are a recurring theme in modern British history. The seeming orthodoxy in Britain in 2020 is that the nation is at war, on a scale not known since the Second World War. The enemy, this time the coronavirus,…

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Black Lives Matter in Britain: The Future and the Past

Jennifer Davis 4 July 202029 October 2022

Jennifer Davis warns that the official sympathy and acknowledgment afforded to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, was not extended in London's recent past, and may not inform the future of policing policy in the UK.

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Radical Object: A Fragile Commemoration of a Brutal Deportation

Martin Plaut 2 July 202029 October 2022

From a fragile piece of printed tissue, Martin Plaut uncovers the forgotten story of a massive demonstration on the eve of the First World War, protesting the brutal deportation from South Africa to Britain of nine trades union leaders who…

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Windrush Migrants and “Our NHS Heroes”

Anna Caceres 25 June 202029 October 2022

It is often in the silence, in the space left by what is not said, that we see the true shape of British anti-blackness, argues Anna Caceres in her analysis of the discourse around the NHS and migrant workers.

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Four Years On

Christopher Kissane 23 June 202024 November 2022

Four years on from the Brexit Referendum, Christopher Kissane reflects on the Brexiteers' abuses of history, and the challenges facing radical historians.

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Pandemic Politics During the Renaissance

Matthew Vester 18 June 20207 January 2023

The sixteenth-century struggle to balance biological and economic well-being implicated a surprising number of authorities, but not everyone accepted their discipline. Matthew Vester explores in Pandemic Politics During the Renaissance.

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When the Statues Went Up

Peter Hill 12 June 20207 January 2023

The last fortnight has seen many statues associated with racism and colonialism torn down. When were they originally put up, and what can that tell about the history of whiteness and empire? Peter Hill explores.

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COVID-19 and Health Inequality

Agnes Arnold-Forster, Caitjan Gainty & Lucas Canino 8 June 202029 October 2022

COVID-19 is not an equal opportunity disease. Even as politicians, managers, and UN officials give us pep talks about how we’re all in this together, segments of our society are having vastly different experiences of this pandemic.

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Working Motherhood: The Best of Both Worlds?

Helen McCarthy 1 June 202010 January 2023

How were current debates about working motherhood pioneered by now-obscure studies by mid-twentieth-century female sociologists? Helen McCarthy explores.

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