History & policy database
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.
Health and Wealth
From a human health perspective the process of rapid economic growth needs to be understood as a profoundly disruptive and uncertain process. Public health information is essential for controlling the most challenging aspects, but is so often lacking in poor countries. Another key to managing health and environmental problems created by economic and demographic growth is strong representative and resourced local government and civic society, incentivised but not simply directed to act by the central state. History also shows that to be effective, policies require strategies for time horizons of at least 20-30 years, not 5-year electoral cycles.
Read MoreIdentity cards in Britain: past experience and policy implications
Introduction The Identity Project: an Assessment of the UK Identity Cards Bill and its Implications, produced at the London School of Economics (LSE), is one of the most exhaustive analyses of a contemporary policy proposal carried out by social scientists in recent decades. Exhaustive – except from one perspective: history. British identity card systems have […]
Read MoreLessons for food-safety policy from the Aberdeen typhoid outbreak
Typhoid and corned beef in 1963 The Aberdeen outbreak was preceded by three much smaller typhoid outbreaks in England – in Harlow, South Shields and Bedford, between May and October 1963. These were all associated with corned beef from the same canning plant in Argentina, known as Establishment 25, and it was realised, soon after […]
Read MoreMake poverty history: debate
Introduction The election is over, now let the battle for the soul and leadership of the Labour government begin. Poverty is at the heart of this battle. For a party founded to fight social injustice and overcome oppression, the persistence of social inequality after two terms in government is a deeply sensitive issue. It goes […]
Read MoreMake poverty history: response
Response Frank Trentmann's thoughtful and perceptive review of my book An End to Poverty? raises a number of important questions about the scope and limits of the argument put forward – and more generally a doubt about how far history and policy can be combined. He defines my approach to the history of social democracy […]
Read MoreThe Palestine peace process: unlearned lessons of history
Introduction This article draws contemporary conclusions from a historical survey, but these are of course tentative, suggestive and open for discussion. The subject matter, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is an on-going process and hence any historical evaluation of its causes and nature keeps changing with the fluctuations in the situation on the ground. Yet there is […]
Read MoreAlternatives to money lenders? Credit unions and their discontents
Introduction For over thirty years credit unions have been cited as a potential panacea for problems encountered by the millions of consumers who find themselves excluded from mainstream financial services. All the major political parties have consistently made supportive noises about the credit-union movement and its principles. In December 2004, Tony Blair took the symbolic […]
Read MoreMonitoring the popular press: an historical perspective
Introduction How much further can the reputation of the popular press sink? Opinion polls routinely find that the level of public respect for journalists is pitifully low – one recent survey placed 'journalists on newspapers such as The Sun, Mirror or Daily Star' well below even government ministers and estate agents in terms of trustworthiness, […]
Read MoreSpiritual security in Putin’s Russia
Introduction In March 2002, a unique ceremony took place in central Moscow: the consecration of an Orthodox Church on the territory of the Lubianka headquarters of the Federal Security Agency (FSB), the chief successor to the KGB in contemporary Russia. Reportedly the fruit of an initiative of Putin dating to his tenure as FSB director, […]
Read MoreKnowledge and the gendered curriculum: the problematisation of girls’ achievement
Introduction Since the mid 1990s, girls have obtained increasingly better grades in school examinations, first at GCSE, and then at A- level. Far from causing a general expression of satisfaction that girls were doing well and catching up with the boys, this rather produced what Chris Woodhead (past Chief Inspector of Schools) described as: 'one […]
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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.
