| History
| History
For American historians, and particularly those who focus on African American history and civil rights, the feelings felt in the last six days are a mixture of sorrow, anger, .. and also déjà vu. How often in the past have…
This post comes from John Hughes, Professor of Nineteenth Century Literature at the University of Gloucestershire, and author of Invisble Now: Bob Dylan in the 1960s (2013). Any admirer of Bob Dylan’s work soon becomes aware of all the tiresome and…
On the face of it this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival does not offer a great deal of interest to the student of history. Yes, there are sessions on Rethinking the Somme, the Great War, Cheltenham in the Great War, and…
Having just been to see Race, the (rather boring, I have to say) bio-pic about the great African American athlete, Jesse Owens, I found myself thinking about people like Owens, and Joe Louis, and contrasting them with Muhammad Ali. How…
This Friday will witness the funeral of Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer in history and a figure whose importance transcended sport. Hundreds will attend his funeral and many thousands more around the world will mourn his passing because Ali was…
When I was thinking of a subject for a possible blog post on my Fulbright experience, I had no shortage of options. I could have easily talked about teaching American history to American students at Elon University, which has been…
Last Saturday, while on my four month stay in the USA, I took the opportunity to visit the nearby International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. This museum is in the Woolworth building, which holds a special place in…
This weekend I leave for Elon in North Carolina, where I will be spending four months teaching and researching as part of the Fulbright-Elon Scholar Award 2015-16. I was delighted to receive this award as I would have the opportunity…
How often is “Happy Birthday”, the song by Stevie Wonder, played to celebrate people’s birthdays? It features quite a lot on Radio 2 … but how many people realise the song was written by Wonder in 1981 as part of…