What does history have to offer to a world beset by upheaval? For the past fifty years, and over 100 issues, History Workshop Journal has been guided by a conviction that the past and the present are inextricable, and that one cannot be understood without reference to the other. But what does that actually mean in practice? And, more particularly, what value does history have at the present moment: as fascism and authoritarianism accelerate in the US and across the world; as western nations continue to collude with an unfolding genocide in Gaza; as the global climate crisis intensifies; as the human rights of refugees are openly flouted; and as voices of misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia echo ever more loudly and guide the policies of some of the most powerful nations on earth?
Today’s episode is devoted to thinking through these vexed and complex questions. In it, the historian Julia Laite, a member of HWJ’s editorial collective, sits down with Laura Schwartz, Laura Forster, Anne Irfan, and Jo Kelcey, four historians who contribute to a special feature in HWJ’s 100th issue titled “History Workshop in Turbulent Times”. Together they reflect on how the particular histories they study and write about illuminate the present moment, the lessons they hold for us, and even the hope they manage to find within them.
This conversation was recorded on 18th September 2025.
