📘From our latest issue! Keir Waddington @keirwaddington.bsky.social (Cardiff University) on 'Living with Drought in the Long Nineteenth Century' #Water #Environment #Climate #Rural #Weather 👉Read open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
![The 1893 drought will, according to the science journal Nature in July, ‘unquestionably take its place among the recorded events of history, if regard be had to its intensity [and] the length of time during which it has lasted’. Communities reported being stretched beyond endurance. Rivers ran dry, reservoirs dropped to record lows, wells failed, and domestic water supplies were restricted to a few hours per day. But while the 1893 drought was severe, it was not unusual. As this article reveals, urban and rural communities faced regular droughts of varying intensity and duration during the long nineteenth century. What did this mean for them? Where previous interest in extreme weather events has focused on recovering historic patterns, or examined resilience or adaption, this article explores the lived experiences of drought to offer a new perspective on the impact of weather shocks and water scarcity on people’s lives. By combining evidence from meteorological reports, newspapers, official reports, and local government archives, the article undercovers the fragility of urban and rural water supplies and examines how behaviours were adapted in response to water scarcity and precarity.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:mvpup65ek2edpkpehxkb7mng/bafkreibwxt4p74hrfvn6jfhajqbew2xpthsyfdla5ynq5uhtcgthg4xccu)
James Ryan
@yasharyan.bsky.social
Historian of modern Russia and the Soviet Union. Reader (Associate Professor) in Modern European History, Cardiff University. Currently writing an intellectual history of inter-war Soviet state violence.
'it is irresponsible to discourage those from low-income backgrounds from going to university in the absence of demonstrably better alternatives. Faced with wavering confidence in higher education, ministers should not just emphasise its value, but ensure it.' (For those from any background). 2/2
Times are terribly tough for historians at the moment, but this is a wonderful scheme, a ray of light. #Skystorians
History Workshop@historyworkshop.org.uk · last mo.📣 Call for Applications 📣 History Workshop is seeking to appoint one Editorial Fellow in 2026, with specialism in pre-1800 CE history from any part of the globe. This is a part-time, paid role. Application deadline: 7 August 2026. Please share widely!
The Cambridge Companion to Lenin, edited by Matt Rendle, will be out in February! I'm very pleased to have contributed the chapter on violence. www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...
The Cambridge Companion to Lenin
Cambridge Core - Twentieth Century European History - The Cambridge Companion to Lenin
cambridge.org
Alexander Rabinowitch has died at 91 years old. He was arguably one of the most important historians of the Russian Revolution. It's hard to state how much Rabinowitch's work influence our understanding of 1917. And now that Alexander Rabinowitch has left us, I figured I’d dig out my old interview
Librarians here found out about this via social media on Monday. Those I've spoken to are devastated and furious. No consultation, no attempt to respond to concerns. Just a constant stream of violence against the Humanities in any form it takes by people who do not value it. #skystorians
Fears for thousands of rare books as Cardiff University plans 'proof of concept' experiment
Martin Shipton Staff and students at Cardiff University have launched a petition aimed at stopping changes to the Arts and Social Sciences Library they fear could lead to the loss of thousands of rare...
nation.cymru
I wrote a blog post for History on my research into humanitarianism in early Soviet Russia. Rather than abandoning humanitarian norms during the civil war, the Bolsheviks adapted and worked within them. Part of the research was funded by a History Research Bursary, which is an excellent scheme.
History: The Journal of the Historical Association@hisjournalha.bsky.social · 3mo ago#Skystorians New blog drop! Peter Whitewood, 'Foreign Prisoners of War and Humanitarian Governance in Revolutionary Russia', www.history.org.uk/higher-ed/re.... Based on research supported by a History Research Bursary
Metropolitan Science: London Sites & Cultures of Knowledge & Practice, c.1600-1800, by me, @jasminekt.bsky.social and Noah Moxham, is available as a paperback from Thursday! A relative snip at £26 www.bloomsbury.com/uk/metropoli... #earlymodern #histSTM
So, some reflections prompted by the combination of the launch tonight of the 1926 Irish Census exhibition at the British Academy and Suella Braverman's comments earlier in the Telegraph on the teaching of a 'patriotic curriculum' under a prospective Reform government. 1/6 #Skystorians
Ireland’s Census 1926 Exhibition Tour to Arrive in London Following Release of Historic Records
gov.ie
Today, Vladimir Putin returned the name of Felix Dzerzhinsky to the FSB Academy, for his “outstanding contribution to ensuring state security.” Dzerzhinsky was the first head of Bolshevik’s secret police in 1918-1926 and the architect of the Red Terror
📣Out now on #firstview Bernard Capp @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social on 'The Cultural, Social, and Ideological Role of the Hat in Early Modern England' #Hat #Identity #Social #Clothing #Religion #Family #History 17thc 🎩👒🗃️ 👉Read open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
On advance access: "Begging and lower-class giving in late Imperial Russia" by Felix Cowan (@utoronto.ca) and Sarah Badcock (@uonhumanities.bsky.social) #OpenAccess doi.org/10.1093/past...
One of the victims, a seven-year-old boy, was blind and had special needs. Shot in the head and face.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 5mo agoIsraeli police kill two young Palestinian boys and their parents in West Bank
An incredible cover has landed for an incredible book - Philippa Hetherington's "Circulating Subjects: Sex Work and Migration in Russia, 1885–1935." More on how to pre-order a copy of her "riveting" and "radical" @cornellupress.bsky.social book here: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...
'The real question is whose vision of the world is being built into the systems our students increasingly rely on.'
Wonkhe@wonkhe.bsky.social · 5mo agoNEW on Wonkhe: Ahead of this week's Digifest, Michael Webb and Rebecca Flook confront the complex values systems behind general purpose AI technology buff.ly/FpuWv43
This is my first article on Soviet history relied exclusively on declassified American and British archives. It is also my first piece to be reviewed by five peer reviewers. The story of the Cold War, the KGB, and same-sex entrapment that no one has ever written about. direct.mit.edu/jcws/article...
The Cold War and the Soviet KGB's Same-Sex Entrapment Operations in the 1950s and 1960s: The Perpetrator in Focus
In August 1963, The New York Times informed its readers that a U.S. citizen had been arrested in the USSR.1 According to the newspaper, the Soviet travel agency Intourist had announced that Bernard L....
direct.mit.edu
My new article, 'Selling Education in England, 1650-1715' is now out (open access) in the English Historical Review! academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...
Selling Education in England, 1650–1715*
Abstract. In the period 1650–1715, a growing consensus emerged that educational culture in England did not meet the needs of the population, and that chang
academic.oup.com
The directorship of SSEES has been advertised. Closing date 15th February. Spread the word! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
ucl.ac.uk
My article in @fwwsjournal.bsky.social ! Open access! #FWW #WWI In it: social revenge as a key cause of soldiers’ unrest in 1917 and struggles for dignity and equality against paternalistic orders during #RussianRevolution www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Meanwhile, one of the key front lines in any geopolitical confrontation - the university sector - is busy (1) hollowing itself out and (2) making itself dependent on US tech. Okay guys! Let's see where that gets you. 😬
Waitman Wade Beorn, PhD, FRHistS@waitmanwbeorn.com · 7mo agoI heard the VC of Manchester on Radio 4 this morning and JFC universities are really drinking the AI kool-aid. After being presented w/ evidence of #AI creating false historical sources, the VC tried to say it was great that students had to critique sources. www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/w...
Excited to share details of my first monograph, Revolutionary Connections, coming out Open Access with OUP this year! It explores diverse forms of international engagement in revolutionary Russia and Ireland, including responses to Ireland in Russian-language texts. global.oup.com/academic/pro...
“Universities can and must adapt…However…when the values and behaviours that are made salient are those that undermine curiosity, critical thought and public service, the term ‘university’ begins to lose its substance.”
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 7mo agoGood reading. 'How the financial problem is described is not neutral. It reflects and reinforces a particular way of understanding what a university is....If the financial situation is framed as a classic demand-and-cost problem....the obvious actions are to emphasise tight cost controls'. 1/4
📣Out now on #firstview! Keir Waddington (Cardiff University) on 'Living with Drought in the Long Nineteenth Century' #Water #Environment #Climate #Rural #Weather 👉Read open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Holidays are over, and I'm motivating myself through the marking and emails by sharing the cover for Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic with @pennpress.bsky.social. Please indulge me! www.pennpress.org/978151282925... #skystorians
When's the last time you heard a VC whose university has financial woes speak openly & eloquently about why what his/her/their institution does really matters & merits investment? Why can't/won't university leaders work to change the conversation? With this profile, this VC should be able to. 2/2
Professor Peter Edwards | The University of Aberdeen
abdn.ac.uk
New skills White Paper proposes radical changes to UK research that ‘could tear up long-held notions of what a British university is, rolling back the Humboldtian model of research-informed higher education’. Jack Grove reports #highered #EduSky https://ow.ly/YuQy50Xov5F
A project that started with a DiGRA23 workshop is finally, nearly out in the world! Coming May 2026 from Bloomsbury’s Writing History series, Writing Games Histories is a collection of essays on historical game studies methods&approaches. Find the ToC here: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/writing-g...
Writing Game Histories
This book offers an accessible introduction to the dynamic intersection between history and games, and the flourishing discipline of Historical Game Studies. Fr…
bloomsbury.com
Complete shutdown in archive access since invasion of Ukraine has transformed Russian studies, say historians finding ways to keep discipline going https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/locked-out-archives-scholars-forced-study-russia-afar
'If the ceasefire holds, this language is an augur of the future. One where there is no reckoning, no addressing of root causes. Only a hurtling into the imperatives of cleanings-up and workings-out. All the while illegal occupation continues'.
While the perpetrators of Gaza’s genocide pose as its saviours, survivors return home – to a wasteland | Nesrine Malik
Western leaders attending the Sharm el-Sheikh summit have enabled and sponsored this slaughter. They are in no position to build a Palestinian future, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik
theguardian.com