I’ve argued that in 1913 there was a perception that the Anglo-German naval arms race was becoming an aero-naval arms race which Britain was losing, and that there was a response on the part of the Navy League, the Aerial League and others to mobilise public opinion in support of an aerial defence programme in […]
Is this the best conference topic ever? I think it just might be. There’s even a Zeppelin on the poster! Note that abstracts are due by 1 August 2013. EMPIRE IN PERIL: INVASION-SCARES AND POPULAR POLITICS IN BRITAIN 1890-1914 Public Lecture & Interdisciplinary Workshop Queen Mary, University of London, 14-15 November 2013 Speakers: Bernard Porter
The XXIII Biennial Conference of the Australasian Association for European History will be held at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, in July 2013, and I’ll be presenting a paper with the following title and abstract: ‘What are the Germans up to?’ The British phantom airship scare of 1913 In late 1912 and early 1913,
Today I attended the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Arts eResearch forum 2012. This was in two parts: firstly, a talk by Tim Sherratt, down from Canberra for the day, entitled ‘Digital Disruptions’, where he exhorted us to find new ways to break things; followed by short spiels by local academics on some of their
Last week, the Australian Historical Association held its 31st annual conference, hosted by the University of Adelaide. The last time I was at an AHA was in 2008 (I didn’t have to go far, since it was in Melbourne); it seems to have got bigger since then. Around four hundred delegates, if memory serves; up
So the Australian Historical Association conference is next week. My slot is on the Thursday, the session before lunch. I’ve written the article and as I predicted it was a tight squeeze. In fact I’m not sure if it’s trying to be too much and consequently is not enough. But the good thing about this
Like Gaul and probably some other things, my mystery aeroplanes paper will be divided into three parts: An overview of the 1918 Australian mystery aeroplane scare itself. The immediate historical context which helps explain the scare, namely the threats from German raiders and of Allied defeat. The bigger picture into which the scare fits, namely
My abstract for the Australian Historical Association’s 31st Annual Conference, to be held in Adelaide this July, has been accepted. The title and abstract are as follows: Dreaming war: airmindedness and the Australian defence panic of 1918 Between March and June 1918, Australian newspapers, police forces and military intelligence units were deluged with hundreds of
An article of mine has been accepted for publication in the September 2012 issue of the Australian Journal of Politics and History, to be entitled ‘”Bomb back, and bomb hard”: debating reprisals during the Blitz’. I’m very pleased with this for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s been a while since I last had an
[Cross-posted at Cliopatria.] Just a brief note on a conference I attended earlier this week at Monash University, ‘The Pacific War 1941-45: Heritage, Legacies & Culture’. I wasn’t presenting, just listening; in fact I only decided to go at the very last minute, mainly on the basis that it seemed silly not to given that
