This section is for pieces, both published and unpublished, which Open History Society members have written. These may be recent or from the distant past, finished articles or drafts that the writer wants to try out. Each year the society also invites one of its own members to give a talk, usually at the AGM , and transcripts of these are among the works appearing here.
Products Which Changed the World – Sugar and Oil
What impact did the development of these basic commodities have upon society, economics and politics? The vast expansion of the sugar industry coincided with the rise to dominance of Britain as an imperial power, while the technological revolution made possible by petroleum products matched the emergence of the USA as a global power.
Hamish Henderson and the Spanish Connection
Why was Hamish Henderson so attached to the aims and experiences of the Spanish Civil War? This article takes a look at the many ways Henderson related his politics and poetry back to that event.
Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, is widely regarded as an early populist. But what is populism? Does Donald Trump fit the populist model, and does he bear comparison with either the historical Jackson or the idealised one?
The Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway and Sunday Travel
Were atavistic Sabbatarians, opposed to trains running on Sundays, a strong lobby or a minority with a loud voice in the 1840s?
Alasdair Gray on the Declaration of Arbroath: A Personal View
“Were the Scots better off for being ruled by their own bosses rather than foreign ones? Happiness and freedom cannot be measured scientifically so we must hunt for clues in chronicles and poems.”
Monitoring Morale: The History of Home Intelligence 1939-1944
During the Second World War the British government undertook a unique experiment in the monitoring of public opinion. It was organised in secret by Home Intelligence, a unit of the Ministry of Information (MOI) that kept a close watch on the home front, observing the behaviour and eavesdropping on the conversations of the general public. The Home Intelligence reports have become in recent years a major source for social, cultural and political historians.
A man of dazzling talents with a lack of judgement? The late Paul Addison, a renowned expert on Churchill, penned this article and bequeathed it to the Open History Society. A masterful analysis of contradiction, genius, erratic judgement, and overwhelming self-confidence.
Why of all the cities attacked by Bomber Command did Dresden come to acquire such exceptional significance? Paul Addison looks at the reasons for the devastating attack, the extent of the destruction and carnage, and the subsequent deployment of the event to bolster competing narratives and ideologies.
Red Herrings & Codswallop: Fishing History Pre-Brexit
Britain’s fraught relations with other fishing nations in the 20th century, the Cod Wars, quotas and a different narrative from the Brexit tale.
In Animal Farm, George Orwell depicts the revolutionary pigs gradually morphing into two-legged tyrants. Did Stalin become like the tsars – despotic, anti-egalitarian, nationalistic?
Chroniclers, Detectives or Judges – Just What Are Historians?
Is it possible to be truly objective when writing history? Or dispassionate? Should we even aspire to such things? Is judgement a flaw or a virtue in historians?
Seventeenth-Century Anglo-Dutch Hostility
British history books don’t generally dwell on the three wars fought between England and the Netherlands in the mid-seventeenth century. Perhaps that’s because England fared rather poorly, on one occasion the Dutch burning the royal dockyards and making off with the flagship of the Royal Navy. Yet by the end of the century a Dutch prince was on the throne and trade between the two nations burgeoned. What caused all this?
The 1707 Window of Opportunity
Why did the union between England and Scotland come about in 1707 and not earlier or later? War, dynastic concerns, political opportunism and not a little amount of intimidation all featured in the mix.
Why Did Germany Lose the Great War?
What put an end to the stalemate which had prevailed on the Western Front in the autumn of 1918? Was it a masterstroke of strategy, war-weariness, the involvement of the USA, or a combination of factors? How did Germans view their defeat in the post-war years?
The Japanese Occupation of China 1937-45: The Divided Opposition and its Consequences
Why did the Japanese succeed in inflicting defeat after defeat upon armies which greatly outnumbered them? How effective was Chiang Kai-Shek at uniting his nation? Japanese ideological views on race and culture are explored to see what underlay their cruelty and barbarism.
Pope Urban II and the First Crusade
How newspapers might have reported the calling of the First Crusade if they had existed in the year 1095. Interviews with concerned Jews and the press office of the papacy. Factually based, but a critical and humorous satire.
The people’s racial community was an ideologically-driven concept forming part of a greater Nazi worldview. This article examines the cohesiveness of Nazi beliefs and how they attempted to put them into practice. It also examines how deeply propaganda messages changed (or failed to change) popular opinion.
“Bloody Victory” or Bloody Stupidity? The Battle of the Somme
A critical examination of the revisionist interpretation of WWI, especially the view that the Battle of the Somme, while tragic, was part of a “learning curve”.
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Masculinity, Public Schools and British Imperial Rule
Masculinity, as defined by Britain’s public schools and lauded by noted authors and poets of the nineteenth century, was an essential prerequisite for imperial administrators across Britain’s far-flung empire. It was a construct of the emerging upper-middle class, an idealistic set of values which could not always be adhered to.
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Chiang Kai-Shek and the USA – puppet and puppeteer, but which was which?
Chiang Kai-Shek was a great survivor and a remarkably astute promoter of his own interests. During the Cold War, he manoeuvred skilfully on the international stage and elevated the small island of Taiwan to a status way beyond its power and resources – including a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Leopold II’s Heart of Darkness
Of all the late nineteenth and early twentieth century European colonial empires, Belgium’s is probably the most notorious for its barbarity. A personal possession of King Leopold II, it was ruthlessly exploited through violence, kidnapping, forced labour and murder.
Why Did Lyndon Johnson Escalate the Vietnam War?
Lyndon Johnson inherited the Vietnam War from his predecessor, John Kennedy, but he also inherited the reason for the USA’s “war on communism” from all the administrations from Truman onwards. The domino theory haunted American foreign-policy makers, while Johnson himself was influenced by the belief, born out of his experience of WWII, that you should not appease dictatorships. The author of the Great Society could nor reproduce his domestic triumphs in foreign policy.
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The United Kingdom is only 214 years old, making it a relatively young nation by European standards. Its inhabitants were previously English, Scottish and Welsh, so identification with the new nation-state was not instantaneous. It required encouragement and a conscious promotion of the idea of Britishness. One way of achieving this was by contrasting the virtuous British with foreigners – the others. This was greatly aided by wars and the growth of empire.
Medical Mayhem in the US Civil War?
“The Civil War was fought at the end of the medical Middle Ages” said US historian, James McPherson. Germ theory had not yet been formulated, hygiene in the huge armies was appalling, pain relief was primitive to non-existent, and far more men died of disease than on the battlefield. And the United States was not at all prepared for the huge scale of the conflict which engulfed the nation. Nevertheless the response on the Union side by medical officers, civilians and particularly women was remarkable. Many innovations during the war laid the foundations of future advances in medical care.
