Have you ever wondered what happens to collective trauma as eyewitness memory fades? For descendants of eyewitnesses, do results of violence dissipate, vanish, or evaporate? Gwyn McClelland explores the evidence from Nagasaki.
History Workshop Journal companion piece
Refugees: scrutiny and intrusion in the archive
The modern asylum process imposes upon refugees a requirement to recount their experiences to officials to determine their eligibility. Peter Gatrell considers what is at stake in analysing the surviving archival record.
A Small Place
Joe Moran reflects on his trip to scatter his father’s ashes on Scattery, a tiny island off west Clare, Ireland, and in the process explores its resonances for histories of family, migration, and the power of small places.
Remembering the New Cross Massacre
In the early morning on Sunday 18 January 1981, a fire broke out at 439 New Cross Road in the London Borough of Lewisham. The fire was almost certainly the result of a deliberate racist attack. Thirteen young Black Britons lost their lives as a result.
Refugee Tales: Now and Then
What might be the links – real and metaphorical – between Anne Frank’s story of exile and persecution and the work of C.S Lewis? Margaret Reynolds explores.
Migrant Textile Workers and Irish Activism in Victorian Dundee
In Dundee in the nineteenth century, Irish women employed in the city’s jute mills pioneered a new activist organisation, the Irish Ladies Land League, fusing feminism, nationalism, and radical land reform. Niall Whelehan explores.
Black Lives Still Don’t Matter Here
How should we understand the connections between the transatlantic slave trade, the expansion of the British Empire, and the history of Australia? Emma Christopher explores.