The history job market is utterly terrifying tbh. 54 applicants for a postdoc/teaching post and probably 30+ of these would have been clearly the most qualified applicant 20 years ago. These are cvs that would have got you an interview for a tenure track post 30 years ago.
Kazuo Ishiguro - BA in English + Philosophy from University of Kent. MA Creative Writing UEA. Goes on to win Nobel Prize for literature. Guess which Humanities departments are being destroyed right now? (Living Nobel Laureates in Literature alumni from Oxford and Cambridge=0)
@SharkHand
@pink_leninade
@shocks
First time I studied US labor history I was gob smacked at the extremity of the violence. When I saw Matewan in the cinema my reaction was that the climax was under-stated!
@TheScotsman
The real analogy is the 1918 Armistice celebration- when people gathered together to give each other flu. (Hint- Covid-19 doesn’t understand the concept of ‘truce’).
@SashoTodorov1
Or conversely the Empire was an outlet for dangerously incapable Etonian Johnson/Rees-Mogg types who could be sent off to die of something nasty abroad (usually disease but including murder by justifiably incensed subjects) before they could unleash damaging projects at home.
‘I have got A*A*A* and would like to study Computer Science at Imperial’
‘Very good, but you will have to do an interview for Classics at Christchurch first’.
‘But’
‘Shut up and stop having low aspirations’.
@bipedleek
@MMiraculorum
The other thing it reveals is that the lack of fast rebuttal strongly suggests all the people praising Hillbilly Elegy actually gave up reading it well before page 179.
OK - so stick with me for a minute, what if there was a KGB agent at Balliol in the early eighties who was systematically recruiting students to act as long term sleeper agents who would decades later bring the British state into total chaotic disrepute?
"Under a further change to the bill, video footage that shows people crossing the Channel in small boats in a “positive light” will be added to a list of illegal content"
@UniofOxford
OK I’ll try to avoid being sarky about past form and make a positive suggestion instead. Can the University back this up by not freezing the post in Black British history that the History Faculty had agreed to advertise next year?
@AlexanderFoxEtc
But is it really posh if it is spelt ‘Tiffin’? If it was spelt something like ‘Toweythenstone’ and pronounced ‘Tiffin’ then that would be posh.
This actually is a good example of Tech Bro ‘Dunning-Kruger’ when it comes to history. They confidently think they know much more than most people because they don’t realise how superficial their knowledge is. It is one reason why they are so wedded to ‘Great Man’ theory.
In a crowded field this is possibly the maddest tweet about British history yet. But the idea that a generation ago everyone lived in a homely and cosy country at ease with itself -now lost forever- is one of the constants of the last three centuries of British history.
The appeal of Britain--of England--is that it was a small and settled place, which was homely and cosy, in which a person could feel truly relaxed and at their ease. That people could trust one another, help one another, and believe the people in power were actually doing their
If only there had been a publication specifically dedicated to Higher Education that could have loudly sounded the alarm about this on a weekly basis since it became obvious what was going to happen at least five years ago.
The jaw-dropping mess of UK higher education is starkly revealed by a series of news stories all on the
@timeshighered
website in the last week or so:
1.) There are job cuts right across the sector (44 universities and counting):
Elon Musk on the request from the Ukrainian Government to turn on Starlink in Crimea: “We figured out that this was kind of like a Pearl Harbor like attack...So they really asked us to proactively take part in a major act of war”
I suppose I should try to use my expertise to provide some clarity. 1. ‘Remembrance weekend’ is not a thing- I have never seen that phrase before this year. 2. Armistice Day is usually a normal day punctuated by the 2 minute silence at 11am. The interrupted normality is the point
@PembrokeOxford
Very supportive of this but would correct the term ‘clemency’ to ‘fairness’- we aren’t forgiving people for missing their offer-we are enacting reasonable justice to excellent students who have been treated poorly by Ofqual.
Also worth remembering that for these Christian Armageddon enthusiasts Russia is often identified as ‘Gog/Magog’. They need Russia to hurry up and be done with Ukraine in order to fulfill its destiny fighting against the Messiah in the Middle East.
Johnson is a religious fanatic who believes God appointed him to serve Israel. He has met with the Kahanists — the most extremist sect of Israel’s govt — more than any US pol except Jim Jordan. His moves toward other countries should be viewed through this lens, not separately.
Becoming increasingly angry at the idea that Germans aren’t ‘freedom loving’. Millions of Germans alive today risked their careers, their liberty and sometimes their lives to bring down a police state. Johnson just made up stories about Brussels tyranny.
So I’ve reached episode 9 of season 4 of The Crown and as a historian I am outraged at this travesty of the factual record.
What happened to “It’s a Royal Knockout”? How dare they. The most spectacular and significant Royal Event since the Delhi Durbar of 1911 is simply ignored.
It is hard to believe and impossible to accept the scale on which Britain's cultural heritage was destroyed in the 20th century.
In 1955, one stately home was demolished every five days in the United Kingdom, including the majestic Bowood House we see here.
@davidschneider
@simon_schama
Technically the Rees-Mogg sweet spot is 1830- just after Catholic Emancipation but before the abolition of rotten boroughs and granting of franchise to the middle classes in 1832.
@Otto_English
I have to admit that ‘identifying’ as pasta or a snow leopard to wind up a hated authoritarian teacher is exactly the sort of shit I’d have done at 15.
@fpleitgenCNN
Nicking the headlights off a 40 year old and possibly radioactive Lada represents an insane level of commitment to looting. Almost impressive.
The Army in the Pacific will be massively expanding its watercraft fleet in the Pacific, in large measure, to strengthen deterrence and support forward war operations in the event of conflict.
The
@TwitterSpaces
team no longer works at Twitter and is currently looking to get hired as team/package deal. These folks are top-notch large-scale social audio engineers and worth $$$ to any Twitter competitor.
I think that the actual mood of most Europeans at the end of July 1914 was probably a lot like this. Fear, uncertainty, dread, a bit of denial, some anger.
@DavidVeevers1
I think when it comes to dramatic license in a history film there is also a difference between ‘didn’t do’ and ‘absolutely wouldn’t have done’. IMO this is the latter. He famously sought to appropriate Egyptian antiquity - not destroy it.
As we approach the centenary of the Armistice this captures it. For those who lost love ones victory could be both meaningful and meaningless. I've been trying to comprehend this for 30 years. I see it differently now as a parent.
For world book day a thread of essential reading about the First World War. Only single authored monographs in English included to stop it being insanely long...
@redhistorian
I’d argue this result became inevitable when the LibDems joined the Coalition. Possibly the biggest error by the leadership of a political party in more than a century.
Just had a thought for a conference - “Diasporas in a World War 1914-1919 ”. British, German, Irish, Italian, Czech, Polish, Jewish, Chinese, Indian, Arab, African ? Any obvious ones I’m missing here?
@redhistorian
TBF did anyone really believe he had the ‘capacity to govern’ in 2019? I suppose the only difference is that it is now completely beyond question that he doesn’t.
@lottelydia
My son had a two year long rebellion against socks-memorably once removing them and throwing them into the road whilst in his push chair right in the middle of a light controlled crossing.
A shout out to the amazing Isabel Holowaty
@iholowaty
the History and Humanities librarian in Oxford who is keeping us informed about the fast moving online access picture and working to build e-resources for next terms courses. She has always been a star but remarkable work.
I’m not particularly an Ishiguro fan (tastes differ and that is ok) or a fan of the Literature prize but this is a stark reflection on the stupid state of HE in the UK.
@RajaKorman
@Mirko_De_Maria
@QJEHarvard
I was thinking exactly the same thing. This is an absolute classic and one of the most famous studies in English on the rise of Fascism. Standard work on history undergraduate reading lists.
@daniel_dsj2110
Out of curiosity one of the things I most liked about the book was the way he put creole nationalism in Latin America near the centre of the story rather than nationalism just being a European export. Has that held up?
Surely two of the big stories in these local elections are the incredible Green surge and the complete flop of Reform UK. Both of which further suggest that the rightwing culture wars are a total bust at the polls.
The A level fiasco is developing a bit of a Poll Tax feel to it. It alienated a much broader swathe of ‘middle England’ than the government first realised. Because a lot of those who have lost out are middle class kids at average/good state schools. GCSEs could supercharge this.
From today, the majority of foreign university students cannot bring family members to the UK.
In 2024, we’re already delivering for the British people.
Doesn’t matter if it is a small or large department, new or old- any colleague who has survived the mad hunger games of getting a job as a historian in a UK university completely deserves our full support when the bureaucrats try to close them down.
@gsoh31
It is shocking how few lab hours the average history course offers. Almost as if they prefer their students to fritter away their time in the library.
@katherineschof8
I know this is joking but a large number of the ‘close universities’ crowd genuinely believe this as well and would put school leaving back to 16 (or 15) if they could.
@Alan_Allport
On a (sort of) related note the granddaughter of Ewen Montagu has just written in our synagogue newsletter that the musical of ‘Operation Mincemeat’ is MUCH better than the film.
Talking to my STEM colleagues from abroad, a lot of them are seriously thinking about leaving UK. The message ‘we really loathe foreigners but we might make an exception for you because of your skills’ goes down like cold sick. Hostile environment not easily contained in reality
The sheer bloody nerve of claiming that there are not enough Nobel Prize winners in universities and ignoring the attack on humanities at the University of Kent which produced two of them in this last decade.
On BBC news channel right now there is a Republican pundit both siding this by comparing it with the left ‘not allowing debates in universities‘. Seriously.
Why won’t someone give me a platform to express my lively contrarian views on medieval Catalans and the Paris commune? I don’t know any of the archival material or much of the historiography-but I’m a white male Oxbridge academic and so I can only conclude I’m being silenced.
@cath_fletcher
@seis_matters
I spent a couple of hours on Monday resetting a password and getting in touch with an administrator who moved on two years ago so that I could report ‘nothing’ because UKRI insisted on it for a project that ended three years ago.
@BeijingPalmer
Yes ‘ Blue Rinse’ was culturally coded as Tory for years to the point of being a synonym for their party base. The idea of blue hair as a signifier of alternative life style feels very recent to me.
@lottelydia
Actor and failed musician best ‘known’ for playing a sidekick’s sidekick a decade ago- ‘fearless critic of woke’.
World famous sportsman at the height of success who takes a stand against systemic racism-‘publicity seeker’.
Got it.
My icebreaker if I was doing the EU negotiation would be to demand that heavy cruisers be limited to 8 x 8” guns and then to apologise that I’d accidentally brought the brief for the 1922 Washington naval conference.
@Zin5ki
Grew up in Gloucestershire. I was in a dorm in USA with a fellow student from Nottingham and we made friends with a guy from Utah. He noticed we didn’t sound much alike and asked us how far apart we’d grown up. We checked and found it was 80 miles. He was stunned.
I once signed an open letter that stated ‘Professor Biggar has every right to express any view he chooses or finds compelling’. Despite endless provocation I still believe this. I also think academics should have the right to call out what they see as bad ideas in open letters.
@PhillipsPOBrien
@MargaretAtwood
Wouldn’t that be the same Margaret Atwood who made a military historian the heroine of ‘The Robber Bride’ and had that character lecture on the practical effects of military uniforms on operations? Seems on brand to me.
Got my jab. AstraZeneca. Roughly a year (?)since
@Daniel_McAteer
and hundreds of others volunteered for the safety trials. All the vaccines are an amazing achievement.
I think the main thing I hadn’t thought about before is all the people who spent 30 July 1914 drowning in the routine of administrative busy work as usual.
@lottelydia
Also it gets the causality backwards - Fox had already failed as an actor well before he realised he could make a new career out of getting cancelled. He last appeared in theatre in 2016.
@GeorgeMonbiot
Actually it is worse than this because they also think that using government to do favours for friends/family/donors is perfectly normal and unobjectionable - which means three incompatible positions.
Could we just stop reviving the crap Edwardian ideas such as Eugenics,Anti-Vaccination and ‘Empire Free Trade’ and bring back the fun ones like Pelmanism, Fletcherism and Esperanto instead?
Speaking of 1982 and I guess whilst I'm being provocative- I believe Swindon's finest: XTC, were always better musicians and better songwriters than The Smiths. And Andy Partridge has never been a racist fuckwit.
@xtcfans
No matter what side of the fight they were on, RNLI lifeboat crews launched to save lives at sea. During the First and Second World War, lifeboat crew launched 5,568 times and saved 11,708 lives.
20 lifeboat crew lost their lives due to enemy action.
#RemembranceDay
BBC News - The officer who refused to lie about being black
Tull is fascinating but so were Clemetson and Bernand who are more genuinely forgotten.Ironically Tull may be more remembered because of his working class background.
Longstanding gripe. The English/British do not drink 'warm' beer (which would be disgusting). They drink ale which is cellar temperature. And cellars in this country are pretty cold, even in summer.
I’m probably late to this but didn’t German leaders initially claim to have invaded Belgium in 1914 in a ‘limited and specific way’ (or words to that effect).
BBC reporter, ‘We are in Bury, birthplace of two time Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, I wonder what he’d have made of all this’.
I’m sure he be shocked at the idea of a bitterly divided Conservative party…
Also in the first minute of this- he’s trying to claim that Starlink was turned off around Crimea because the US ‘has sanctions against Russia’ - but the USA doesn’t acknowledge Crimea as Russian!