History's Value?

Abstract

This issue of HWJ carries two features which spring directly or indirectly from the work of two founding editors, Tim Mason and Gareth Stedman Jones. Together these show how the study of British and European history has changed in the past forty or so years. On German and Italian fascism and modern British history respectively, they remind us of the value of historical thinking as a means to comprehend political and cultural change. The questions they raise about historical method and approach have a particular salience given the threat to the humanities in British Universities of the Conservative Coalition Government’s cuts to research and teaching. In a third feature in this issue, contributors respond directly to the cuts and their potential impact, addressing the general health of archives, and of medieval history; the Oxford University campaign against the cuts; and history teaching in schools. Further discussion of these and other themes will be found on the website of the Raphael Samuel Centre (www.raphael-samuel.org.uk) which is organizing a conference in 2012 on ‘History, the Nation and Schools’, as well as at historyworkshoponline.org, of which more below.