I’ve been reading George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier (London: Penguin, 1989), which was originally published in 1937. Not because it has anything to do with my thesis, but just to broaden my horizons, and because, well, it’s Orwell, ya know? I certainly didn’t expect to read about the possible effects of bombing in […]
Andrew Boyle. Trenchard. London: Collins, 1962. Finally got around to buying a copy of the standard biography of a crucial figure in the early RAF. L. E. O. Charlton. Charlton. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1938. Charlton’s autobiography, originally published in 1931 — so after his almost-resignation from the RAF over bombing in Iraq, but before he became
A useful site about digitising your trip to the archives: Electronic Researcher. It was mentioned in a H-ALBION thread about which digital cameras are best for use in archives, and which archives allow them (British Library no, National Archives yes). I wish I’d found this earlier, as I have already bought a camera for this
A. Just about all the time, it seems, if it’s Britain: Lord Palmerston in 1845, on the coming of the steam ship: … the Channel is no longer a barrier. Steam navigation has rendered that which was before impassable by a military force nothing more than a river passable by a steam bridge.1 Georges Valbert
Lee Kennett. A History of Strategic Bombing. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982. Looks like a very good short introduction to the subject. Balanced international coverage and the cultural side of things is not neglected.
Well, OK, the Commonwealth Games then. British Empire Games was the original name: the first were held in 1930 in Hamilton, Canada. Most of the world probably has not heard of the Commonwealth Games, but it’s second only to the Olympics (which it closely resembles) in terms of bringing the greatest number of elite athletes
Robert Graves. Goodbye to All That. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1960 [1929]. Another of the classic war books, that I should already have read. David Powell. The Edwardian Crisis: Britain, 1901-1914. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave, 1996. New books about Edwardian Britain are pretty thin on the ground (over here, anyway) so I got excited when I
Orac at Respectful Insolence has called attention to the attempted arson attack on The Holocaust History Project, and called for other bloggers to link to the THHP home page as a show of solidarity. There’s no proof as yet, but the suspicion is that Holocaust deniers are responsible. Holocaust denial is pseudohistory, a pathological and
There’s an interesting article on the rise of radio news in the United States in the late 1930s, in the February 2006 issue of History Today: “On the right wavelength” by David Culbert. One thing I learned from this article was that it was the Munich crisis in September 1938 which made radio news reporting
Yesterday was the 63rd anniversary of the Bethnal Green Tube disaster. On the evening of 3 March 1943, 173 people — men, women and children — died at the Bethnal Green Tube station, the greatest loss of life of any single incident during the German bombing campaign against Britain. The tragedy took place during an
