Policy Papers
History & Policy papers are written by expert historians, based on peer-reviewed research. They offer historical insights into current policy issues ranging from Afghanistan and Iraq, climate change and internet surveillance to family dynamics, alcohol consumption and health reforms. For historians interested in submitting a paper, please see the editorial guidelines.
Currently, 252 papers are freely searchable by theme, author or keyword, with new papers published regularly. Where possible, we publish papers to coincide with relevant policy developments. If you are a policy maker, civil society practitioner or journalist and would like to contact one of our historians, please contact [email protected].
You can download H&P policy papers directly from the Apple iBooks store to your iPhone, iPad or Mac. We also have an Amazon Kindle version to download to your PC for transfer to your Kindle via USB cable. Please consult your Kindle manual for further details.
Not protest but direct action: anarchism past and present
Introduction Fifty to sixty years ago anarchism appeared to be a spent force, as both a movement and a political theory, yet since the 1960s there has been a resurgence in Europe and North America of anarchist ideas and practice. Britain nowadays must have a greater number of conscious anarchists than at any previous point […]
Read More‘Fraudulent’ disability in historical perspective
Introduction In November 2011 it was estimated that 2.4 million people in the UK received incapacity benefits. The principal aim of the coalition government's welfare reform is to reduce this number and curtail a perceived culture of welfare dependency, helping into employment people previously assessed as being unable – or in common portrayals – unwilling […]
Read MoreBritish and American banking in historical perspective: beware of false precedents
Introduction The ideal banking system is one that is both stable and competitive. If that is achieved financial crises are avoided, savers receive satisfactory rates of interest, and borrowers obtain the funds they require on the terms and conditions they want. Such an ideal is probably unobtainable and no degree of intervention by governments can […]
Read MorePutting pandemics in perspective
Introduction Writing in 1750, seven years after a devastating European-wide epidemic of influenza, the English country doctor and surgeon John Huxham characterised flu as the 'morbus omnium maxime epidemicus' or the 'greatest of all sicknesses'. For the next 200 years or so that served as a pretty good working definition. As the German disease geographer […]
Read MoreWinning ‘hearts and minds’: American imperial designs of the early twentieth and twenty-first centur
Introduction In his 2004 book Colossus, historian Niall Ferguson describes the United States as an 'empire in denial'. In Ferguson's opinion, two of the main drawbacks of this denial are that not enough resources are given to non-military aspects of US interventionism and that the US allows an unrealistically short timeframe in which to attempt […]
Read MoreA stable currency in search of a stable Empire? The Austro-Hungarian experience of monetary union
Development, dynamics and precedents for the eurozone It is difficult to find clear precedents for today's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), currently encompassing 17 EU member states. Historically, there have been three types of monetary union: Aligned currencies, separate governments. These monetary unions entailed a significantly lower level of transfer of monetary sovereignty than the […]
Read MoreThe return of the gangmaster
Introduction In the summer of 2010, the Farmers' Guardian reported that a Lancashire gangmaster company had had its licence revoked after investigators from the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) uncovered one of the worst cases of worker abuse in recent history. Whereas thirty points of non-compliance would have been sufficient to revoke the licence, Plus Staff […]
Read More‘The new politics’: parliamentary lobbying, public procurement and political reform
Introduction The establishment of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition in the wake of a hung parliament in May 2010 was heralded by both parties' leaders as representing the dawn of a 'new politics'. Most significantly, this 'new politics' called for a renewed focus on transparency and democratic accountability after a major political scandal. But the first […]
Read MoreHistory and the financial crisis
Introduction In 1944, Henry Morgenthau, US Secretary of the Treasury, opened the Bretton Woods conference on post-war monetary relations with a warning to the delegates of 44 countries. His words were based on the bitter experience of the 1930s: 'We saw the worldwide depression of the 1930s. We saw currency disorders develop and spread from […]
Read MoreThe care of older people in Japan: myths and realities of family ‘care’
Introduction Japan currently has the world's highest proportion of older people and the largest number of centenarians. According to the stereotype, Japan's tradition of strong family care for older people means that dedicated and responsible children look after dependent older parents within extended family living arrangements, with very few institutionalised elderly. In reality extensive family […]
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About Us
H&P is based at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, University of London.
We are the only project in the UK providing access to an international network of more than 500 historians with a broad range of expertise. H&P offers a range of resources for historians, policy makers and journalists.
