Cambridge Core BlogThe Shaping of Tuscany
I grew up in the outskirts of Florence in the 1970s and 1980s, in a town that was neither city nor country and that is now firmly embedded in Florence’s metropolitan area.…
A book about the beginnings of Islamic law has its own story of beginning
Beginnings are difficult to retrace. And the beginning of my book, The Beginnings of Islamic Law, is no exception. There are many experiences that shaped the writing of the book, including ones that predate when I began researching it.…
Modern American History: Meet the Executive Editors
It is surprising that there has been no “big tent” journal devoted to recent U.S. history, a field of great vibrancy and enduring importance.…
The World of Mr Casaubon
The world waits on tenterhooks to discover what kind of leader President-elect Trump will be. Will Trump’s statecraft involve a straightforward implementation of his somewhat preposterous campaign promises?…
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History’s new World Christianities Essay Prize
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History has an expansive remit: we publish original research into the history of Christianity broadly conceived, from the ancient world to the present, throughout the world, extending to every variant of Christianity and every historical subdiscipline.…
Introducing Precarious Lives and Syrian Refugees in Turkey, an upcoming special issue of New Perspectives on Turkey
Since civil war erupted in Syria in 2011, Turkey has become host to the largest number of Syrians fleeing their country—about 2.7 million registered refugees—and the largest refugee-receiving country in the post-World War II period.…
Nelson Mandela, the University of the Witwatersrand and the #FeesMustFall movement
In a new paper, Nelson Mandela and Wits University in the Journal of African History on Nelson Mandela’s experience as a student at the University of the Witwatersrand, Bruce Murray reveals many surprising aspects of the university’s most famous student. The paper shows that almost all of the problems that black students confront today – the unsympathetic stance of the institutions, the unmanageable demands of fees and indebtedness, and the special trials of segregated cities – shaped Mandela’s time at Wits, and his relationship with the university while he was in prison. Yet, even amidst this very familiar story there are important surprises, both about Mandela the student, and his university. The paper illuminates much that was not well understood about both of them, and should be essential reading for anyone interested in the predicament of the universities.…
Introducing the Journal of Chinese History
The study of Chinese history outside of China has grown remarkably since the 1960s and is certainly one of the liveliest fields of history today.…
Urban Sights – Urban History’s latest multimedia special issue is now available
Matt Delmont, Guest Editor of ‘Urban Sights: Urban History and Visual Culture,’ introduces this latest multimedia special issue from Urban History. Urban History is pleased to announce the publication of an online special issue ‘Urban Sights: Urban History and Visual Culture’.…
The creation of medieval papal history
Rosamond McKitterick, University of Cambridge, discusses her forthcoming article ‘The papacy and Byzantium in the seventh- and early eighth-century sections of the Liber pontificalis’, which will be published in Papers of the British School at Rome later this year.
How to write about China and India
How to write about China and India – Jahnavi Phalkey As BJHS Themes, the new, fully open access, peer-reviewed journal from the British Society for the History of Science, publishes its first issue, one of the volume’s editors, Jahnavi Phalkey, gives her observations on the opportunities and challenges on writing about China and India.…
Q & A With Professor David O. Morgan, The Mongols and Post Mongol Asia
The latest issue of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society is a special double issue which honours the contribution Professor David O’ Morgan has made over many years to the understanding of the Mongols and their fascinating story.…