Notes from the archive

Professor Maria Hayward and Dr Julie Gammon were awarded prestigious Fellowships at the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut which is part of Yale University this year, so they spent a very exciting couple of weeks this October immersed in the library's fabulous collection of eighteenth-century materials. The Library is so named, not after an individual person, but because its founders, W. S. Continue reading →

Dr Annelies Cazemier On Wednesday 5th November 2025, Professor Josephine Quinn spoke to our Departmental research seminar about her book, How the World Made the West. It has received rave reviews and was described by William Dalrymple (among others) as ‘one of the most fascinating and important works of global history to appear for many years’. Josephine Quinn is Professor in Ancient History at the University of Cambridge. Continue reading →

Author Hirah Azhar, Doctoral researcher in the Department of History, University of Southampton and Imperial War Museum Blog Who decides what we see of war? What is censored, erased, or amplified? And how have evolving technologies and political choices helped shape the visual narratives about war that we consume? In my recently launched podcast The War We See, I puzzle over these questions and more with a broad range of people connected to the world of war imagery, including... Continue reading →

Although most of our discussions and deliberations on HIST3275, ‘A Short History of Exploration’, have taken place in lecture theatres and seminar rooms, this week we decided to do something different. On Wednesday morning, an intrepid band of third-year historians and tutors gathered at Avenue Campus preparing to embark on our very own expedition of discovery. Our aim was to navigate our way to Greenwich in South East London in search of the National Maritime Museum. Continue reading →

History’s Charlotte Lydia Riley has won a very prestigious award from the American Historical Association. The prize is for her the American edition of her book, Imperial Island: An Alternative History of the British Empire (Harvard University Press, 2024). The prize is the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize for an author’s first book in European history from 1815 through the 20th century. The Awards ceremony will take place in Chicago, January 2026. Continue reading →

Blog Post – An Escape Room in a Box Last November, I began a Digital Humanities internship, investigating the possible uses of their Museum in a Box (MiaB) which had been previously rarely used. The project involved the Museum in a Box – an acrylic box designed to play audio clips when a programmed NFC is placed on it. Continue reading →

Department of History Colleague, Professor Tony Kushner, writes an important piece on the recent incident in Manchester for The Conversation: https://theconversation. Continue reading →

Maritime BritainHow did Britain become a global trading nation—and what can the lives of sailors, merchants, and coastal communities tell us about that story? On 16–17 September, the Maritime Britain team gathered leading voices in maritime history at the University of Southampton to explore these questions and to showcase a bold, Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) -funded project that is redefining our understanding of Britain’s seaborne past. Continue reading →

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit (ICE) is detaining thousands of people on orders of the Trump administration. Despite claims that only the most violent of criminals are being arrested, in reality, many individuals have no criminal convictions and some of them are US citizens. The Japanese American community in California has been quick to draw comparisons between the alleged targeting of Latino communities by ICE and their own treatment during the Second World War. Continue reading →

On 13 August, Southampton University hosted ‘Political Witchcraft: Magic and the Politics of Representation,’ an evening of public talks exploring how magical beliefs and practices have been researched, debated, and distorted by various interested parties at different times and places in history. Continue reading →