Housing and the Peripheralization of Race Politics in Britain, 1948–1977*

Abstract. The idea that there was a ratio of people of colour to white people that, if exceeded, would prompt a white backlash was a tenet of folk sociolog

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The purposeful workhouse of England’s Old Poor Law*

Abstract. It has long been recognized that the English workhouses of the Old Poor Law era (1601-1834) were important precursors to institutions of the mode

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Fossil Energy and The Ecology of Everyday Life in The Low Countries During The Long Eighteenth Century*

Abstract. Why did early modern households bring the polluting energy of fossil fuels into their homes? For a long time, peat and coal were considered infer

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Making sugar out of opium: A narco-plantation regime in early modern Southeast Asia*

Abstract. In the early modern period, while slavery became firmly entrenched in the Atlantic’s sugar economies, Southeast Asia witnessed the rise of distin

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Reckoning and Economic Life in Late Medieval England*

Abstract. This article explores the practice of ‘reckoning’, a means of reciprocal accounting that becomes prominent in late-medieval England. Despite its

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Protecting Soviet Muslims: Muhajir Activism and the Minority Treaties, 1917–1934∗

Abstract. It is a historiographical convention to view interwar debates over the protection of vulnerable populations through the prism of ‘minority rights

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Rumour, Public Opinion and Print in Istanbul, 1780s–1830s*

Abstract. Drawing on Ottoman official correspondence, an informer’s report, and palace-sponsored tracts and chronicles, this article challenges the widely-

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The Jewish Refugee Family and Concerns Over Intermarriage in Australia After 1945∗

Abstract. Intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews was conceptualized as a ‘problem’ by the Australian Jewish establishment after the Second World War. From

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The Jewish Refugee Family and Concerns Over Intermarriage in Australia After 1945∗

Abstract. Intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews was conceptualized as a ‘problem’ by the Australian Jewish establishment after the Second World War. From

academic.oup.com

Tibetan gift-giving, British indifference, and the erasure of provenance in colonial india*

Abstract. In 1913, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet dispatched a lavish diplomatic gift to the viceroy of India. However, upon its arrival the colonial a

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Involuntary Investors in British State-Building: Seamen’s Tickets and the Financial Revolution c.1700–1760*

Abstract. This article investigates the relationship between government liquidity, personal credit, and state practices in eighteenth-century Britain, draw

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Abandoned Land: Muslim Refugees’ Property in the Post-Ottoman Balkans*

Abstract. This article examines what happened to the ‘abandoned land’ of Muslim refugees in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania after the end of Ottoman rule in

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Vernacular development, drought, and US technical assistance in postcolonial Lebanon*

Abstract. Between 1951–55, the US Bureau of Reclamation conducted research in Lebanon to plan a hydroelectric and irrigation scheme using Lebanon's largest

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Past & Present Society Newsletter August 2026

Featuring the latest articles from the Past & Present journal and news and updates including events funded by the Past and Present Society.

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Bodies, Tides, Timber, and the Global History of London’s Docks, 1860–1928*

Abstract. This article examines changes in the bodies and environment of labourers carrying timber imported into London’s docks in the 1860s to the 1920s t

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Secrecy and sovereignty in the Age of Revolutions*

Abstract. Transparency, or publicity as it was then called, became a fundamental value linked to popular sovereignty in the late eighteenth century. Those

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Seeing and making the Cape of Good Hope as the East Indies

Exploring the causes and consequences of the integration of the Cape of Good Hope into the East Indies, Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh’s research highlights how contingent geopolitical designations reshap...

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Food Security, Nitrates Capitalism, and the Haber–Bosch Revolution*

Abstract. This article reinterprets the early history of the Haber–Bosch process of ammonia synthesis through the transnational development of synthetic ni

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Volume 272 Issue 1 | Past & Present | Oxford Academic

The official journal of the Past and Present Society. Publishes original scholarly articles on historical, social and cultural change in all parts of the world, examining particular problems and perio...

academic.oup.com

Making sugar out of opium: A narco-plantation regime in early modern Southeast Asia*

Abstract. In the early modern period, while slavery became firmly entrenched in the Atlantic’s sugar economies, Southeast Asia witnessed the rise of distin

doi.org