received from Dr. Olivia Formby (Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge) Dates: 23 – 24 April 2026 Location: Harrods Room, Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge Programme Registration (closes 12 April 2026. Places free but limited) Contact the workshop’s convener Dr. Olivia Formby Besides the Past and Present Society this workshop is supported by: the George Macaulay Trevelyan Fund (Faculty of History, University of Cambridge), and the Social History Society. 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 stages in their careers.

received from Dr. Norman Aselmeyer (Wadham College, University of Oxford) and Dr. Eric Burton (University of Innsbruck) Cities and Decolonization: Anti-colonial Struggles, Urban Protest, and Global Solidarities in the Twentieth Century Organisers: Norman Aselmeyer (Wadham College, University of Oxford) and Eric Burton (University of Innsbruck) Location: Wadham College, Seminar Rooms 4 and 5 Dates: 19/20 March 2026 Overview The conference examines the role of cities as central and contested arenas of decolonization, one of the most significant historical processes of the twentieth century. Across seven thematic panels and a keynote lecture, the conference brings together contributions that analyse the diverse actors, sites, and tensions that shaped decolonization as a global and urban process. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which local struggles were connected to transnational dynamics and to the analysis of urban spaces as sites of resistance and solidarity. Programme Conference website Registration (free) – by e-mail to the organisers Sponsors and supporters besides the Past and Present Society: Wadham College University of Oxford, Faculty of History University of Oxford, University of  Innsbruck Department of Contemporary History Past and Present is pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from […]

Received from Dr. Nick Evans (Birkbeck, University of London) and Dr. John Latham-Sprinkle (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) The SHOC Research Group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in association with the Medieval Caucasus Network and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research, have announced that registration for the international conference ‘Studying Non-Elites in the Medieval Caucasus’ is open. You can register here. The organisers welcome anyone, including academics, students and members of the public, with an interest in the history of the Caucasus or in methodologies for studying the experience of non-elite groups, such as women, peasants, or enslaved people. The conference features two days of papers on a variety of topics, from the Caucasian slave trade, to the place of women in medieval Armenian society, to the bioarchaeology of the medieval Caucasus. The keynote speakers are Nik Matheou (University of Edinburgh) and Irina Arzhantseva (Insitute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences). Speakers hail from Belgium, the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Czechia, the Russian Federation, Georgia, Armenia, and Egypt. The final programme will be published soon, including details about the local area and catering options. The in-person component of the hybrid conference will take place at the U-Residence, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium, […]

by the Past & Present editorial team Former Past & Present Co-Editor Prof. Matthew Hilton (Queen Mary, University of London) has a new monograph Charity After Empire British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation and Development published by Cambridge University Press in the Modern British Histories series. The books blurb explains it explores: “Why did charity become the outlet for global compassion? Charity After Empire traces the history of humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid. It shows how they obtained a permanent presence in the alleviation of global poverty, why they were supported by the public and how they were embraced by governments in Britain and across Africa. Through several fascinating life stories and illuminating case studies across the UK and in countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe and Kenya, Hilton explains how the racial politics of Southern Africa shaped not only the history of international aid but also the meaning of charity and its role in the alleviation of poverty both at home and abroad. In doing so, he makes a powerful case for the importance of charity in the shaping of modern Britain over the extended decades of decolonization in the latter half of the twentieth century.” The […]

by Dr. Samantha Iyer (Fordham University) The United States’s food stamp program is under attack again—again. The current government shutdown has left the nearly 42 million people who rely on the program—now called the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP—in a state of uncertainty. Even more fundamentally, in July of this year, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which is bound to significantly reduce the number of people who can benefit from the program. That is because the bill increases the state and local costs for administering SNAP, expands the work requirements for receiving assistance, and excludes a range of non-citizens from eligibility. The contraction of government assistance programs is nothing new. It is most often associated with welfare reform under the administration of Bill Clinton in the 1990s. But family food assistance programs have followed a somewhat different trajectory than other government assistance. That trajectory makes the current cutbacks all the more dangerous. For as US policymakers have slashed other welfare programs, these food programs have come to serve as welfare of the last resort. I examine the distinct path of family food assistance programs in a recent article, ‘Agricultural Workers, Tenant Farmers, and the Midcentury U.S. […]

by the Past & Present editoral team Past and Present was delighted to learn that Dr. Daniel F. Banks has been awarded the Society for Italian Historical Studies’ Modern History Article Prize for his forthcoming Past & Present article “Ships, Guns and Money: The Logistics of Revolution and Garibaldi’s Campaign of 1860”. In their citation to prize committee consisting of Prof. Giuliana Chamedes (chair), Prof. Michael Ebner and Prof. Steven Soper stated that: “This article reframes the history of Italian unification and helps us understand a new dimension of why Garibaldi’s campaign against the Bourbon army was successful. Taking us behind the scenes, Banks shows that the Garibaldi expedition was enabled by more than rag-tag idealists and good public relations propaganda; its victories were also made possible through a carefully planned logistical revolution, carried out by businessmen, traders, and economic non-state actors. Shedding new light on the history of capitalism, on Genoa as a geopolitical and revolutionary hub, and on the transnational dimensions of the Risorgimento in exile, we learn how committed radicals mobilized the structures of international capitalism in favor of their cause. Through a rich array of archival, primary, and secondary sources, Banks shows us how complex networks […]

by Dr. Bill Mihalopoulos My recent article “Liberty, the Maria Luz Incident and the liminal legal status of Chinese indentured labourers and Japanese licensed prostitutes” in Past & Present No. 268 (August 2025) focused on the celebrated Maria Luz Incident (1872), which involved Chinese labourers on board a Peruvian ship anchored in the Japanese waters of Yokohama. The resulting 1872 Japanese court ruling rendered null-and-void the service contracts that bound those labourers to eight years of service. And the ensuing release of Japanese licensed prostitutes from their ten-year indenture contracts was an unforeseen consequence of that ruling. The prevailing academic opinion is that the legal ruling of the Maria Luz Incident was the seminal moment when rights talk was introduced to Japan. The Japanese ad hoc tribunal, it is said, freed the Chinese labourers from indentured servitude in Peru and for the first time (temporarily) emancipated Japanese women from sexual servitude by attaching the metaphor of slavery to the domestic issue of licensed prostitution. What has captivated scholarship on the Maria Luz case is what the ruling signified for Japan’s modernization makeover. Was this the watershed moment when modern Japan invested in notions of personal rights, justice, and equity? “Liberty, […]

Received from Dr. George Brocklehurst (School of Advanced Study, University of London) Dates: 5 – 6 November 2025 Location: Magdalene College, Cambridge CB3 0AG Programme (as of 22 September 2025) Registration (free) 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 stages in their careers.          

By Niamh Hanrahan (University of Manchester) On May 19, 2025, graduate students, academics, archivists, and researchers came together at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London to discuss the history of tracing individuals persecuted by the Nazi regime during the Second World War. The workshop, generously joint funded by the Royal Historical Society and the Past and Present Society, was organised by Barnabas Balint and Niamh Hanrahan. It focused on exploring the opportunities and challenges presented by one particular collection: the International Tracing Service Archive. At the close of the Second World War, millions of people were displaced across multiple continents. Parents, children, and siblings searched for their missing relatives. Thus began decades of tracing. Many of these searches were carried out by the International Tracing Service (ITS), which gathered and generated millions of pages of documentation. These documents now make up the ITS Archive, accessible at the Arolsen Archives in Germany and digitally in sites around the world. In 2011, it was announced that the Wiener Holocaust Library would become the UKs copyholder for this archive. Since then, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, alongside researchers and members of the public have been able to access over 30 million pages of […]

Received from Dr. Henry Miller (Northumbria University) Oaths and Oath-Taking in Historical Perspective, 1600 to the Present: 1-day historical workshop on the theme of oaths/oath-taking in Britain, Ireland, and the British Empire, 1600-the present organised by Dr. James McConnel and Dr. Henry Miller with support from the Past and Present Society, the Social History Society, and History: The Journal of the Historical Association. Date and times: Thursday, September 11 · 10:30am – 6pm Location: Northumbria University – London, 110-114 Middlesex Street, London E1 7HT Registration Overview As the 2023 coronation of King Charles III highlighted, oaths remain a feature of modern British public life. Indeed, though largely taken for granted, oaths and declarations continue to play a much wider role within many state agencies (e.g., cabinet government, parliaments, the judiciary, the magistracy, the armed forces, and the police force). Oaths also feature in other parts of life in the UK: professions including doctors, senior lawyers, and CoE ministers are still required to take oaths. Oaths are also a requirement of some civil society groups (e.g., the Scouts) and are required for membership of some mass-membership associations (e.g., Freemasonry and Orangeism). And since 2004, oaths have been performed at UK citizenship […]