Opinion Articles
H&P encourages historians to use their expertise to shed light on issues of the day. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece for publication, please see our editorial guidelines. We currently have 342 Opinion Articles listed by date and they are all freely searchable by theme, author or keyword.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government: a question of leadership
The disastrous decision for Sri Lanka to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which takes place 10-17 November, has come back to bite the Commonwealth on the backside. The Canadian and Indian heads of government have refused to attend, marking the first public boycott by heads at a CHOGM and implicitly snubbing Prince […]
Read MoreBritain and the formation of modern Yemen
Half a century ago today a tribal revolt began in the mountainous Radfan region of South Arabia (now Yemen), which was to have far-reaching repercussions for Aden, Britain’s only Middle Eastern colony and its military headquarters in the region. Most South Arabian tribes were Sunni Muslims, divided up into hundreds of different groupings, each part […]
Read MoreHistorical method and international crises: weapons of mass destruction in Syria
The methods, tools and approaches offered by the historian to analyse policy options are often neglected during debates on international crises. But they can be usefully applied to the debate about the prevention of further use of weapons of mass destruction in Syria. Following a US-Russia agreement, the five permanent members of the UN Security […]
Read MoreEverything is History
In the surveillance of private communication almost everything is history. Edward Snowden’s revelations exposed the obsolescence of current legal safeguards. The key legal safeguards in Britain, the 1994 Intelligence Services Act and the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), have been overtaken new digital systems and software. The late twentieth century is a far […]
Read MoreDebating the ‘good death’: a long view
‘Death had a thousand doors with which to let out life’ in Britain before the twentieth century. It was ubiquitous and immediate, taking place in the presence of family, friends and neighbours; and patterns for handling it impressed themselves on generations around the deathbed. Although the semi-public ritual of dying varied down the centuries, especially […]
Read MoreNo glass ceiling for female officers
'We need the best and the brightest talent in senior positions', said Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, in response to the promotion of Elaine West to air vice marshal. She is the first woman in the Royal Air Force (RAF) to attain 2-star rank. 'There are no glass ceilings for female officers', Hammond said. If that […]
Read MoreWhy Thatcher’s attempt to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics failed
In 1980 Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government attempted to use a specific form of 'soft power': it sought a British boycott of the forthcoming Moscow Olympics in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that had taken place in late 1979. This allied the government to the United States under President Jimmy Carter, which also supported […]
Read MoreThe Strasbourg court is anti-democratic, just as its founders intended
In the recent uproar over the European Court of Human Right's interference in the British criminal justice system, Tories have to confront an inconvenient truth: they have no one to blame but themselves. Rather than directing their fury at foreign judges, Conservative Party leaders should be cursing their haloed predecessors. In the late 1940s, Tory […]
Read MoreMr Gove’s new history curriculum: top marks or could do better?
The key question that needs to be asked about the 'final' version of Michael Gove's history curriculum, published on 8 July, is whether it is better than what it replaces? The Coalition Government arrived in May 2010 with Michael Gove confidently promising that he could deliver a better history curriculum, but has he? The new […]
Read More‘Little grape’ and the ‘right to reign’
There are plenty of reasons to treat the Succession to the Crown Act 2013, which ends the policy of male primogeniture in royal succession, with a healthy dose of scepticism. The Act was clearly green-lighted to save the British government the embarrassment of denying the throne to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's 'little grape,' […]
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