̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - history

How will history tell our stories?

lkm37 — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 09:17:37 +0000

Historian Helen McCarthy helps us make sense of our recent past. She infuses her subjects – from working mothers to modern retirees – with urgency and personality.

Cambridge Festival Speaker Spotlight: Dr Martin Ruehl

zs332 — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 12:04:12 +0000

Dr Martin Reuhl is a Senior Lecturer in German Intellectual History in the Faculty of History and a ̽��ֱ�� Associate Professor in German History and Thought in the Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages & Linguistics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Black Town & Gown: ̽��ֱ��historical legacy of Black presence in the city of Cambridge

zs332 — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 13:57:10 +0000

̽��ֱ��premiere of Black Town & Gown: ̽��ֱ��historical legacy of Black presence in the city of Cambridge will take place on 28 March from 6.30pm and is hosted by Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH).

Can ancient dead languages save today's endangered languages? A tale of identity and visibility

zs332 — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 09:05:24 +0000

̽��ֱ��world is facing a language crisis. Of its c.7,000 languages, Glottolog estimates that only 35% are safe - the rest are at varying stages of being threatened, moribund or nearly extinct. In some cases, it is already too late.

̽��ֱ��queer men of H staircase

cjb250 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 09:00:26 +0000

For the past 300 years, the Gibbs Building at King’s College, Cambridge, has been home to many of history’s most influential characters. A new book explores the hidden – and in many cases, not-so-hidden – stories of some of its queer fellows.

Professor Joya Chatterji awarded Wolfson History Prize 2024

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 12:51:06 +0000

This year’s Wolfson History Prize has been awarded to Joya Chatterji, Emeritus Professor of South Asian History and Fellow of Trinity College, for her book Shadows At Noon: ̽��ֱ��South Asian Twentieth Century, first published in 2023.

̽��ֱ��book charts the story of the subcontinent from the British Raj through independence and partition to the forging of the modern nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Chatterji’s history pushes back against standard narratives that emphasise differences between the 3 countries, and instead seeks to highlight what unites these nations and their peoples.

Interwoven with Chatterji’s personal reflections on growing up in India, this distinctive academic work uses a conversational writing style and takes a thematic rather than chronological approach. It adds to the discussions of politics and nationhood typical of other histories of the region by weaving in everyday experiences of food, cinema, and domestic life.

As a result, the cultural vibrancy of South Asia shines through the research, according to the Wolfson History Prize judges, allowing readers a more nuanced understanding of South Asian history.

A judging panel that included fellow Cambridge historians Professors Mary Beard and Richard Evans, and headed by panel chair Professor David Cannadine, described Chatterji’s book as “written with verve and energy”, and said that it “beautifully blends the personal and the historical”.

“Shadows at Noon is a highly ambitious history of 20th-century South Asia that defies easy categorisation, combining rigorous historical research with personal reminiscence and family anecdotes,” said Cannadine.

“Chatterji writes with wit and perception, shining a light on themes that have shaped the subcontinent during this period. We extend our warmest congratulations to Joya Chatterji on her Wolfson History Prize win.”

“For over 50 years, the Wolfson History Prize has celebrated exceptional history writing that is rooted in meticulous research with engaging and accessible prose,” said Paul Ramsbottom, Chief Executive of the Wolfson Foundation.

“Shadows at Noon is a remarkable example of this, and Joya Chatterji captivates readers with her compelling storytelling of modern South Asian history.”

Shadows at Noon was also longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction 2024 and shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize 2024.

Now in its 52nd year, the Wolfson History Prize celebrates books that combine excellence in research with readability for a general audience.

Recent winners have included other Cambridge historians: Clare Jackson, Honorary Professor of Early Modern History, for Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688 (2022) and David Abulafia, Professor Emeritus of Mediterranean History, for ̽��ֱ��Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans (2020). Helen McCarthy, Professor of Modern and Contemporary British History, was shortlisted for Double Lives: A History of Working Motherhood in 2021.

Chatterji wins for Shadows at Noon, her genre-defying history of South Asia during the 20th century.

Wolfson Foundation

Joya Chatterji at the award ceremony for the Wolfson History Prize 2024

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Military musicians returning from Napoleonic wars invented Britain’s brass bands

ta385 — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Military musicians returning from the Napoleonic wars established Britain’s first brass bands earlier than previously thought, Dr Eamonn O'Keeffe has found. ̽��ֱ��study undermines the idea that brass bands were a civilian and exclusively northern creation.

Cambridge experts bust myths about family, sex, marriage and work in English history

ta385 — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 23:01:00 +0000

Sex before marriage was unusual in the past – Myth! In some periods, over half of all brides were already pregnant when they got married.

̽��ֱ��rich have always outlived the poor –Myth! Before the 20th century the evidence for a survival advantage of wealth is mixed. In England, babies of agricultural labourers (the poorest workers) had a better chance of reaching their first birthday than infants in wealthy families, and life expectancy was no higher for aristocrats than for the rest of the population. These patterns contrast strongly with national and international patterns today, where wealth confers a clear survival advantage everywhere and at all ages.

In the past people (particularly women) married in their teens – Myth! In reality, women married in their mid-20s, men around 2.5 years older. Apart from a few decades in the early 1800s, the only time since 1550 that the average age of first marriage for women fell below 24 was during the baby boom of the 1950s and 1960s.

These are just some of the stubborn myths busted by researchers from ̽��ֱ��Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (Campop). Their Top of the CamPops blog (www.campop.geog.cam.ac.uk/blog) went live on 11 July 2024, with new posts being added every week. ̽��ֱ��blog will reveal ‘60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death since the middle ages’.

̽��ֱ��initiative marks the influential research group’s 60th anniversary. Founded in 1964 by Peter Laslett and Tony Wrigley to conduct data-driven research into family and demographic history, Campop has contributed to hundreds of research articles and books, and made the history of England’s population the best understood in the world.

Earlier this year, the group made headlines when Professor Leigh Shaw-Taylor revealed that the Industrial Revolution in Britain started 100 years earlier than traditionally assumed.

Professor Alice Reid, Director of Campop and a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, said: “Assumptions about lives, families and work in the past continue to influence attitudes today. But many of these are myths. Over the last 60 years, our researchers have gone through huge amounts of data to set the record straight. This blog shares some of our most surprising and important discoveries for a broad audience.”

Myth: Until the 20th century, few people lived beyond the age of 40. Reality: Actually, people who survived the first year or two of life had a reasonable chance of living until 70.

Myth: Childbirth was really dangerous for women in the past, and carried a high chance of death. Reality: ̽��ֱ��risk of death during or following childbirth was certainly higher than it is now, but was far lower than many people suppose.

Myth: Families in the past generally lived in extended, multigenerational households. Reality: Young couples generally formed a new household on marriage, reducing the prevalence of multi-generational households. As today, the living circumstances of old people varied. Many continued to live as couples or on their own, some lived with their children, whilst very few lived in institutions.

Myth: Marital titles for women arose from men’s desire to distinguish available women from those who were already ‘owned’. Reality: Both ‘miss’ and ‘mrs’ are shortened forms of ‘mistress’, which was a status designation indicating a gentlewoman or employer. Mrs had no necessary connection to marriage until circa 1900 (and even then, there was an exception for upper servants).

Myth: Famine and starvation were common in the past. Reality: Not in England! Here, the poor laws and a ‘low pressure’ demographic system provided a safety net. This helps to explain why hunger and famine are absent from English fairy tales but common in the folklore of most European societies.

Myth: Women working (outside the home) is a late 20th century phenomenon. Reality: Most women in the past engaged in gainful employment, both before and after marriage

Myth: Women take their husbands’ surnames because of patriarchal norms. Reality: ̽��ֱ��practice of taking a husband’s surname developed in England from the peculiarly restrictive rule of ‘coverture’ in marital property. Elsewhere in Europe, where the husband managed the wife’s property but did not own it, women retained their birth names until circa 1900.

Myth: People rarely moved far from their place of birth in the past. Reality: Migration was actually quite common – a village population could change more than half its members from one decade to the next. Rural to urban migration enabled the growth of cities, and since people migrated almost exclusively to find work, the sex ratio of cities can indicate what kind of work was available.

Campop’s Professor Amy Erickson said: “People, not least politicians, often refer to history to nudge us to do something, or stop doing something. Not all of this history is accurate, and repeating myths about sex, marriage, family and work can be quite harmful. They can put unfair pressure on people, create guilt and raise false expectations, while also misrepresenting the lives of our ancestors.”

On World Population Day, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge researchers bust some of the biggest myths about life in England since the Middle Ages, challenging assumptions about everything from sex before marriage to migration and the health/wealth gap.

Assumptions about lives, families and work in the past continue to influence attitudes today. But many of these are myths.

Alice Reid

Black and white photograph of a family lined up against a wall in E W Hope, Report on the physical welfare of mothers and children (Liverpool, ̽��ֱ��Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, 1917), volume 1

Yes