In 1977, the South Korean government agreed to send taekwondo instructors to the West African republic of Upper Volta. Inhae Yap explains what the exchange can tell us about the politics of aid in the Cold War and today.
Between 1930 and 1931, forty-seven people died on a remote fishing station in the Indian Ocean. Andy Drummond examines what their lives and deaths reveal about capitalism and accountability in France's colonial empire.
In the eighteenth century, landlords in the Scottish Highlands began to exert greater control over what their tenants planted and how they planted it. Cat Scothorne shows how these 'reforms' disrupted resilient ecological practices.
Throughout modern history, overseas students have neither been entirely rejected nor genuinely accepted. Nilakshi Das examines this discourse as it shifted over time.
Ten illustration students from Nottingham Trent University consider their personal connections to the past and what it means to practice history from below.
There is a persistent myth that decolonial regimes across Africa were “corrupt.” The Savundra Affair reveals the networks of global finance that were, and are, part of this corruption.
More than just a fruit, the pineapple was a canvas onto which ideas of the ‘exotic’ were projected and proliferated from the early modern period onwards.
How was the eighteenth-century pursuit of knowledge intertwined with enslavement and empire? Lucy Moynihan on the history of literary institutions in the British colonial world.
Julie Hardwick, Marybeth Hamilton, Kate Gibson, Sarah Roddy, Orsi Husz, Andrew Popp & Alexia Yates
What does it mean to write "intimate histories" of economic life? How might a focus on "the intimate" transform the way historians perceive and describe the economic past?
What can tools - for cutting, sharpening or carrying - tell us about the nature of work in the past? Paul Warde on how the skills that tools embodied can nuance narratives of modernity and productivity.
The term 'racial capitalism' has been widely used by activists and historians. Catherine Hall turns to the 18th century entanglements between Jamaica and England to reflect on the shifting forms of racial capitalism across generations.
What is the difference between poverty and scarcity? Julia McClure explores how different communities and societies mitigated the risks of resource scarcity before capitalism created poverty.
Epidemics are "moments of fluidity when parts of existing societies are laid bare as not fit for purpose". Looking at the history of the Black Death, Jane Whittle asks whether our current crisis could lead to new solutions to entrenched…
What are the origins of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) hangover? David Anderson drives onto the QE2 bridge to analyse the legacies and landscapes of PFI.
After many of the former steel manufacturing heartlands switched their political allegiances to the Conservatives in the General Election, Tosh Warwick asks what impact legacies of industrial decline, loss and uncertainty have had upon…
Trevor Jackson examines the history of financial crises in the United States, coincidentally in the years 1819 and 1919, and asks what the future of capitalism holds in 2019.
What can history tell us about the politics of monetary innovations like cryptocurrencies? Rebecca Spang looks back to the era of the French Revolution to explore "billets de confidence" - local, decentralised bills of exchange.
In this episode of the History Workshop podcast, Rebecca Spang looks back to the era of the French Revolution to explore the power dynamics of decentralized currencies.
What is the history behind the global plastics crisis and what are the solutions? Simon Pirani argues that we need to look at technological systems and social and economic systems in which they are embedded.
As the NHS strains under a 'winter crisis' without sufficient funding, Anne Summers looks at the limits of private provision of healthcare in 1800 and 2018.
As the UK government announces plans for a dozen new “garden cities”, Sam Clevenger argues that, from their inception, garden cities were middle class attempts to civilize the bodies and health of the urban working class.
