by Dr. Ben Schneider (University of Cambridge) The fear that new technologies will cause mass unemployment appears during every wave of transformative innovation. Despite the recurrence of these discussions, including in ongoing debates about the effects of AI, many economists and economic historians, including the Nobel laureate Joel Mokyr, doubt that technology has ever caused large-scale job losses and long-term unemployment. They argue, for example, that similar narratives appeared in the 1960s without an obvious rise in the unemployment rate of rich countries. Moreover, while the Industrial Revolution is commonly mentioned as an instance of technological disruption, there is little quantitative evidence for unemployment caused by new technologies, referred to as “technological unemployment”.  These optimistic views are misleading. “In Technological Unemployment in the British Industrial Revolution: The Destruction of Hand-Spinning” my article in Past & Present no. 270, I systematically analyze job loss and subsequent unemployment in part of the British textile industry during the Industrial Revolution. In the space of a few decades beginning around 1770, new textile machines replaced work that had employed 8% of the British population. There was insufficient new work available in the growing factory districts to replace the lost jobs, and widespread unemployment and underemployment […]

by the Past & Present editorial team We were delighted to learn that Dr. Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh (University of Amsterdam) has won the Royal Historical Society’s Early Career Article Prize 2026 for his article “Colonial world-making and global knowledges at the early modern Cape of Good Hope” (Open Access) which was published in Past & Present no. 268 (August 2025). Awarded annually, the RHS Early Career Article Prize (known between 1898 and 2025 as the Alexander Prize) is for an essay or article based on original historical research, by a doctoral candidate or an early career historian within three years of being awarded a doctorate, published in a journal or an edited collection of essays. Two prizes of £250 each are awarded annually. In their citation the judging panel chaired by Dr Jesús Sanjurjo stated that: “The panel is delighted to award the 2026 Early Career Article Prize to Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh for his brilliant article, ‘Colonial World-Making and Global Knowledges at the Early Modern Cape of Good Hope’. Gianamar presents a sweeping, transoceanic history that fundamentally challenges our understanding of early modern geography and knowledge production. By seamlessly weaving together the ambitions of the Dutch East India Company, the astronomical diplomacy […]

by the Past & Present editorial team Edited by Dr. Hannah Murphy (King’s College London) the 18th Suppmentary issue of Past & Present “Medicine, Race, and Slavery in the Transatlantic World, 1600–1850” comprising 12 articles has now been published. The suppment’s abstract explains the volume illustrates that: “The histories of medicine, transatlantic slavery, and race cannot, and should not, be viewed separately. Between 1440 and 1888 more than twelve million African people were forcibly trafficked across the Atlantic Ocean, enslaved in plantations, cities, and homes across the Americas, the Caribbean, and Europe. As emerging discourses on anatomy, physiology, and disease claimed new authority over explanations for human difference, the same period gave rise to medicalized concepts of ‘race’. Bringing these developments into a single analytical frame, this Supplement offers a wide-ranging set of case studies spanning Italy, Spain, the Canary Islands, the British and French Caribbeans, Britain, North America, Ethiopia, and the kingdoms and territories of the west coast of Africa. Ranging from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, the contributions draw on diverse archival materials, including inquisitorial trials, port inspections, medical case histories and treatises on disease, missionary correspondence, travel narratives, legal records, newspaper accounts, and first-person testimonies. Foregrounding […]

by Dr. Olivia Formby (Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge) Rational speech was hailed by early modern Europeans as the clearest outward sign of reason: the capacity that set humans above all other animals. Yet speechlessness was a common part of early modern life. All human infants were born without speech and, throughout the life cycle, speech could be impeded or even silenced, temporarily or permanently. ‘Speech/less in the Early Modern World’ research workshop (23-24 April 2026) aimed to interrogate the ways that the articulation of rational speech continues to be privileged by modern scholars as the best evidence for humanness, reason, and even emotion.  We gathered at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge, to share new research that explores the multiple meanings and diverse lived experiences of speechlessness in the early modern world (c.1450-1830). Contributors and chairs were drawn from all career stages and represented institutions across the UK, Europe, Canada, and Australia. Spurred on by gorgeous spring weather, the workshop was a convivial environment for interdisciplinary discussion about voice, the body, and personhood in early modernity. Across six panels, we explored how people of the past experienced varying degrees of speechlessness due to illness or disability, enslavement, migration, spiritual events, […]

by Dr. Yeliz Teber (Wolfson College, University of Oxford) The Kizilbash/Alevism-Bektashism Symposium: New Corpora, Databases, and Digital Tools in Ottoman and Contemporary Contexts, generously supported by the Past & Present Society, was held successfully at Wolfson College, University of Oxford, on 22 May 2026. Convened by Dr. Yeliz Teber, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, the symposium brought together established and emerging scholars working on the history, culture, religion, and heritage of Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi communities, who constitute the largest religious minority in today’s Sunni-majority Turkey. As the first event of its kind dedicated specifically to digitally engaged approaches to Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi studies, the symposium provided a unique platform for scholarly exchange on new methodologies, sources, and research questions within this rapidly expanding field. The symposium featured nine research papers presented by scholars from the UK and abroad, exploring a wide range of themes and long-standing questions in the field. In the morning panel, Mark Soileau advanced a novel methodological approach to the study of the hagiography of Hacı Bektaşi, a major text narrating the life and legends of the patron-saint of the Bektashi Sufi order, by drawing on a corpus of 103 manuscripts. Soileau demonstrated how the […]

by the Past and Present editorial team Past and Present was delighted to learn that Dr. Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh (University of Amsterdam) has been shortlisted for the Royal Historical Society’s Early Career Article Prize 2026 for his article “Colonial world-making and global knowledges at the early modern Cape of Good Hope” (Open Access) published in Past & Present #268. Dr. Giovannetti-Singh’s work is one of eight articles shortlisted for the prize. Two winners will be announced in July 2026 each of whom will be awarded a prize of £250. The Royal Historical Society states that “the 2026 shortlist recognises the scholarly contribution of the eight articles published in 2025”. Our congradulations and best wishes to Dr. Giovannetti-Singh and all whose work has been recognised by being shortlisted this year.

received from Dr. Yeliz Teber (Wolfson College, University of Oxford) Event: KIZILBASH/ALEVISM-BEKTASHISM SYMPOSIUM: New Corpora, Databases, and Digital Tools in Ottoman and Contemporary Contexts Taking place: Friday 22 May 2026 Location: Wolfson College, University of Oxford Registration: by e-mail to the symposium convener Dr. Yeliz Teber (yeliz.teber@ames.ox.ac.uk). All welcome. Full programme: can be downloaded here Event Overview The Alevis (historically known as Kizilbash) and Bektashis constitute the largest religious minority in Sunni-majority Turkey, drawing from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including Turkish, Kurdish, and Zaza, with diasporas across Europe and North America. Rooted in an esoteric form of Sufi mysticism and the veneration of Caliph Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, the Kizilbash/Alevis-Bektashis have often been perceived as ‘heretical’ and persecuted during both the Ottoman and Turkish Republican periods. Despite the community’s marginalisation, Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi studies have grown rapidly in recent years, challenging some of the dominant narratives in broader Islamic, Ottoman, and Turkish scholarship. In response to this growth, the Kizilbash/Alevism-Bektashism Symposium provides a rare opportunity to bring together established and emerging scholars of Alevi-Bektashi studies from the UK and abroad at the University of Oxford. It is the first of its kind globally to focus on digitally engaged projects on Kizilbash/Alevi-Bektashi […]

received from Dr. Ana Struillou (King College London) and Dr. Kaja Cook (Royal Holloway, University of London) Date and Times: 22 May 2026 (09:00 – 18:00) Format: his will be a hybrid workshop. The online link will be circulated via email in advance of the session. Registration: via this form Event Overview Join CEMS on Friday 22nd May for a one-day workshop on interactions between the Iberian Atlantic and North Africa. This workshop has been organised by Dr. Ana Struillou (KCL) and Dr. Kaja Cook (Royal Holloway) and has been generously supported by Past & Present. Pre-modern Maghribi societies have so far been marginalised in Atlantic history and predominant global history narratives, being perceived as static and backward. Building on important scholarship on the African diaspora and Muslim presence in the Americas that has greatly contributed to enriching the picture of the early modern Atlantic and the Spanish Empire in particular, this workshop will explore how North Africans actively participated in, and helped constitute, the Iberian Atlantic world, be it as corsairs raiding the Iberian Islands of Madeira and the Canaries or as enslaved and free communities shaping the culture of the early modern Spanish Americas. At the same time, this […]

by Dr. James Baillie (Austrian Academy of Sciences) One week ago (13-14 March) the Medieval Caucasus Network had its first international conference! We gathered at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel for two days of hybrid format discussions. The theme of the conference, led by Dr. John Latham-Sprinkle as its senior organiser, was studying non-elites in the medieval Caucasus. While exact definitions of a non-elite can vary significantly, a point discussed throughout the conference, the majority of people in the medieval Caucasus were clearly outside its socially and economically elite echelons. Non-elites represent most of human life: most of the food eaten and wine drunk, most of the stories spoken into a night sky and lost to time, most of the births and deaths and hopes and tears. Despite this, many of them are nearly invisible to us: lying outside the written record of states and chroniclers, and sometimes leaving little archaeological trace, the lives of even relatively wealthy specialist non-elites like merchants and craftspeople are rarely discoverable in the medieval period, let alone the much larger mass of agricultural labourers and pastoralists who made up most of the population. Working out how we can – and when we cannot – best […]

received from Andrew Simpson and Abraham Sullivan (University of St. Andrews) Death and Bereavement in Early Modern Britain, 1520-1689 A two-day conference on the theme ‘Death and Bereavement in Early Modern Britain, 1520-1689,’ to be held at the University of St Andrews on 26 and 27 June 2026. The event will explore how individuals, families, and communities experienced death and mourning during a period of profound religious and social change. The keynote speaker will be Professor Alec Ryrie of Durham University, whose work on the history of the Reformation continues to shape the field. The conference will bring together established scholars, postgraduate students, and independent researchers to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on the subject. The discussion will include the following anticipated panels: · Practice of death · Theology of death · Execution and massacre · Death in literature · Funerals · Burial and remembrance · Commemoration and partisanship Registration is now open. To register for the event, as well as to view a provisional programme, please visit the conference website Past and Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all […]