'Our Subversive Voice: The History and Politics of English Protest Songs, 1600-2020', a new multi-disciplinary book is launched on the four hundred year history and politics of protest songs. Dr Angela McShane, Department of History Honorary Reader, is part of the 'Our Subversive Voice' research project team looking at the use of song to register protest through the ages.

The book is published by McGill Queens University Press in Canada: https://www.mqup.ca/our-subversive-voice-products-9780228023722.phpLink opens in a new window 

The protest song is - and has always been - a form of political oratory as vital to political representation as it is to performance. Investigating five centuries of English history, Our Subversive Voice establishes that the protest song is not merely the preserve of singer-songwriters; it is a mode of political communication that has been used to confront many systems of oppression across its many genres, from street ballads to art song, grime to hymns, and music hall to punk.

For more information about the research project visit website: https://oursubversivevoice.com/Link opens in a new window

Congratulations to Professor Roberta Bivins and Professor Mathew Thomson who have had their article about NHS anniversaries published in Modern British History.

This was drawn from reflections from The Cultural History of the NHS research project.

Read the full article here.

Abstract

Delivered a day after Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) reached its 75th year since its opening on the Appointed Day of 5 July 1948, the Pimlott Lecture for 2023 explored the culture of NHS anniversary-making. What can the marking of these anniversaries tell us about changing attitudes towards the service, and indeed, the British state? Here, examining evidence from the media, government archives, and Mass Observation, we argue that NHS anniversaries have long functioned as points of reflection but that their role as moments of national celebration and even communion has come to the fore only recently and culminated in the apparent ‘anniversary fever’ of 2018. We will explore the reasons behind the growing public fervour, what it can tell us, and the lessons offered by our work on this (still) best-loved of British institutions for historians working on highly politicized objects in ‘fevered’ times.

Professor JE Smyth's upcoming publication is featured in an article by the Guardian about Mary C McCall Jr, the female screenwriter airbrushed from Hollywood history.

Professor Smyth's new book, "Mary C McCall Jr: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Most Powerful Screenwriter", will be published in September and aims to restore Mary C McCall Jr’s reputation as one of the film industry’s most important figures.

Read the article in full.

Emeritus Professor Robin OkeyLink opens in a new window (1942-2023) has been awarded Jesus College's Francis Jones Prize for the best book on Welsh history published in 2023. This was Robin's last book before his passing in December 2023.

Extracts from the notification sent by Thomas Charles-Edwards, Jesus Professor of Celtic (Emeritus):  

'The committee has decided that the prize for 2023 should be awarded to Robin Okey for his book, Towards Modern Nationhood: Wales and Slovenia, c. 1750–1918. That he died shortly after it was published makes no difference: the book deserves the prize..... The prize is £1,000...... Quite apart from the prize itself, we very much hope that the family (and his former colleagues) will be pleased that Robin’s last book has been honoured in this way.'

Professor Peter Marshall's new book "Storm’s Edge: Life, Death and Magic in the Islands of Orkney" was launched 11 April 2024. Storm's Edge is a magisterial history, a fascinating cultural study and a mighty attestation to the importance of placing the periphery at the centre. Britain is a nation composed of many different islands, but too often we focus on just one. This book offers a radical alternative, encouraging us to reorient the map and travel with Peter Marshall through landscapes of forgotten history.

For more information visit the Harper Collins website

'A surprising page-turner, full of humour and startling details' THE TIMES

'If I read a better history this year, I will be lucky' TOM HOLLAND

'An astonishing tour de force’ SPECTATOR

The International History Review journal has published an article by History alumnus Sam Matthews Boehmer, winner of the Global History Prize dissertation from 2021-22.

Read the full article "Questionable Allies: British Collaboration with Apartheid South Africa, 1960–90" here.

Horizons: A Global History of Science (Penguin, 2022) by Dr James Poskett has been shortlisted for the 2023 British Society for the History of Science Hughes Prize.

 The Hughes Prize "is awarded every two years to the best book in the history of science (broadly construed) published in English which is accessible to a wide audience of non-specialists.”

Drawing on Warwick’s longstanding core module for the period, numerous early modernists have collaborated on a textbook which first appeared in 2009. Now in its fourth edition, The European World 1500-1800: An Introduction to Early Modern History (London: Routledge, 2023) has been adopted by many universities and used by generations of students across the globe.

To mark the latest updates, which include two new chapters – on ‘Environments’ and ‘Food & Drink Cultures’, a fresh ‘all colour’ look and additional print as well as online features, Beat Kümin (editor) and William Rupp (assistant / website editor) have recorded a teaser & full video introduction at the historic church of Berkswell just a few miles from campus.

We hope that it will whet your appetite to find out more about The European World on the Routledge homepage and our companion website!