With the centenary commemorations continuing, all things World War I have been filling our screens, pages and radio waves. The latest of these was the BBC’s The Crimson Field, a drama set in a field hospital…
Heidegger’s Nazi ties and anti-Semitism are indisputable. Can the man be separated from his philosophy?
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) is easily the most controversial philosopher in the 20th century. To a large extent this is due to his implication in Nazism, which is a scandal to some, a fascinating spectacle…
There’s more to history than kings and queens.
wallg
The government has recently announced changes to the content of GCSE and A level history exams in England. As in previous reforms to the history curriculum, the documents set out the proportion of British…
Personal records of soldiers and their families bring us closer to the effects and experience of war.
Australian War Memorial
The coming centenary of the first world war has already prompted some disquiet about a revival of the so-called “history wars”, given the significance of war to ideas of Australian national identity. In…
Why has Anzac Day and the concept of ‘Anzac’ experienced such a resurgence in recent years, particularly among young people?
AAP
Thousands of young Australians will gather at Gallipoli this Anzac Day. Our TV screens will fill with faces in the cold light of early dawn, a tear trickling down the cheek in sadness that so many died…
What happens to Romulus and Remus?
Wolfgang Zwanzger/Shutterstock
It has been reported that new archaeological finds have pushed back the age of Rome. A team of archaeologists discovered the remains of a wall built to channel water, which dates back to the ninth century…
Beyond the tea and scones, the Country Women’s Association has played an important role in Australian women’s history.
topsynette
Next month the Country Women’s Association (CWA) of New South Wales will vote whether or not to put one of their most valuable assets, their Potts Point headquarters, up for sale. The prospect of the sale…
A new oral history project is collecting the life stories of several generations of gay and lesbian Australians.
Zürich Tourismus
Australia’s legal system may not yet reflect this but in 2014, according to a range of polls, a majority of Australians support same-sex marriage. Two decades ago, such support would have been beyond the…
Joko Widodo is seen as the most committed to human rights of Indonesia’s potential leaders, but it’s not a big issue in coming legislative and presidential elections.
EPA/Mast Irham
The Indonesian army and civilian vigilantes killed at least half a million people between 1965 and 1968. Hundreds of thousands more were imprisoned without trial for long periods. Some were sent to remote…
Betty Balfour, loving life and laughter.
Courtesy of BFI National Archive.
The discovery of 1923 British silent film Love, Life and Laughter, widely hailed as a “lost masterpiece”, is exciting in returning a film celebrated upon its release as a highpoint in British cinema. Fantastic…
The huge caldera of Mount Tambora, Indonesia – still active today.
Jialiang Gao
Most have heard of the Battle of Waterloo, but who has heard of the volcano called Tambora? No school textbook I’ve seen mentions that only two months before Napoleon’s final defeat in Belgium on June…
A collaboration between historians, text mining, and information visualisation researchers has thrown up new insight into the hunger for sugar, coffee and rubber in the 19th century, as well as how fat…
Now is the winter of our disbelief.
Gareth Fuller/PA
Controversy over Richard III’s alleged resting place in a lonely Leicester car park has recently erupted after two eminent academics claimed it could not be said with any confidence that the skeleton in…
BBC One’s swaggering epic The Musketeers has concluded with much skulduggery and winning of honour. A second series has already been confirmed after the show opened spectacularly with a consolidated audience…
The publishing of popular history is driven not by how scholars write, but by what readers are willing to buy.
Erik Mauer
Writing on Saturday in The Age, popular historian Paul Ham launched a frontal assault on “academic history” produced by university-based historians primarily for consumption by their professional peers…
Though Asia is riddled with flashpoints, alarmists tend to overlook the level of dialogue, such as this meeting in Beijing between the US and Chinese navy chiefs, Ray Mabus and Zhang Jianchang.
Official US Navy Imagery/Flickr
One hundred years ago, Europe stumbled into an unexpected and utterly devastating war. It was unexpected for two reasons: the diplomatic mechanisms set up after Napoleon’s defeat had kept the continent…
What does a 21st century Viking look like?
Anthony Devlin/PA
The Vikings have arrived at the British Museum. This exhibition, the first of its kind for decades, is notable for its scale and ambition. That there is sufficient demand is unsurprising, given the recent…
Oxfam has announced the latest set of results from its Behind the Brands project to influence ten leading food and beverage companies to reform their supply chains. The charity’s efforts are only the most…
Decisions made when the University of Sydney was founded in 1852 laid the historical foundation for a curious relationship between universities and religion in Australia.
AAP/Paul Miller
Australian universities have had a curious relationship with religion. The nation’s first university excluded clerical teachers of religion, which soon had the unintended consequence of marginalising religious…
The “digger myth” has left little room for appreciation or debate surrounding the work of today’s service personnel.
Australian Department of Defence/AAP Image
In his new book Anzac’s Long Shadow: The cost of our national obsession, James Brown argues that: a century after the war to end all wars, Anzac is being bottled, stamped and sold. The former soldier turned…