History is perhaps a project centred on memory and remembrance. Many people would suggest history is the study of the past, but how can it be when the past itself no longer exists? Doing history relies on texts from the past that allow us to study something that exists now but within a historical context. But what happens when the texts surrounding certain remembrances are minimalised, overshadowed or disregarded? This is why, as historians, we must learn to read in the silen

The idea that history inevitably leads to better and better circumstances is an addictively optimistic one. It has its uses, and it’s often the way people are first taught history or the way history is portrayed in mass media. This simpler, more optimistic narrative can be useful for engaging people in the subject at first. It’s far easier to think, “They used to do what? How ridiculous!” than to confront the depressing realisation of “Why has nothing changed?” or even “How d

At the core of the Pathways to the Past project is a simple message: our past is something we should both enjoy and feel authority over. History isn’t just for obscure journals or the semi-popularised books of institutional historians. As Hilda Kean and Paula Ashton note, everyone is an ‘active agent in creating history’ – making it difficult to distinguish the historian from ‘their publics.’ We are all products of the thoughts, words, and actions of our predecessors; therefo

This year, the University of Warwick rebranded. The iconic purple ‘W’ was out, replaced with a logo more closely resembling the University’s coat of arms. In the bottom-right corner of both sits the bear and ragged staff – a familiar symbol of Warwickshire. Yet the new logo features a bold change: the bear has turned its back on the staff. Has the University bastardised this iconic emblem of the county, or merely updated it for the modern age? Here, I look back at the history