Kurt Schwitters at Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, featuring a reconstruction of the #Merzbau: www.zpk.org/en/ausstellu... www.finestresullarte.info/en/exhibitio... #dada

Request for help checking website functionality! On my Alsatia site, using Wordpress, I've just published two PDFs (of 1811 debtor relief acts): alsatia.org.uk/site/statute... alsatia.org.uk/site/statute... Do they work for whatever hardware & software you're using? Thanks!

A tale of a common #C18th experience, of being detained for debt for just a few days. #History #DebtHistory

Crowdsourcing: What’s the best book on Red Vienna? #skystorians ?

Not strictly inspired by a book, so I’ll forgive them for omitting this one, but Hooligan by Max has to be the best song inspired by a Russian literary figure sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/06...

#OnThisDay in London petitioning history, 1723: The residents of the Southwark Mint rookery petition Parliament against the recent closure of their sanctuary, a stronghold against bailiffs chasing debtors. An article on this petition on the Alsatia blog: alsatia.org.uk/site/2012/02...

What, did you think they were going to stop with trans people? www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/u...

And more #PublicDomain books I've got Google to release from 'snippet view': Maps and Plans in the Public Record Office: books.google.co.uk/books?id=zys... Sample Census 1966 books.google.co.uk/books?id=fyo... Consolidated list of Govt publications, 1925: books.google.co.uk/books?id=cyd...

#OTD in 1918: The Representation of the People Act is passed, extending the vote to men over 21 and some women over 30. statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #History #LegalHistory

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition. Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Free to download until Feb 17th: The Five Ages of Antifascism by Joseph Fronczak www.cambridge.org/core/element... #History #AntiFascism

Just to offer the counterpoint here, as I think it is very very important we do so: this is absolutely anticipatory obedience 101. Much as university leaders might see it as their responsibility to “plan” for this possibility, in effect REF are getting to set the agenda without winning any election

thinking about how there's a true solution to the trolley problem and union workers were the ones to point it out

Good riddance to these bullying swine. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

OOOOH Researchfish Is going extinct 🐡🐟🐠 help.researchfish.com/en_US/resear...

An open letter to @theguardian.com about their article last week about the Crown’s Silence, requesting that the Black scholar of Caribbean heritage who did the years of archival research behind this claim, and published it in 1979, Roger Norman Buckley, be acknowledged as the source of this reveal:

As the Government reveals the "AI Skills Hub", we find out the taxpayers of the UK have paid £4.1 million... for a bookmarks site. Nice work for those who can get it. mahadk.com/posts/ai-ski...

One of the reasons why Elon Musk and other folks on the right want to shut down Wikipedia (or "compete" with it). It's a good platform for regular folks to accumulate data, even keep track of all of this administration's atrocities in real time. Great work

A reminder that racist historian David Starkey, said in 2020: "Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain would there? An awful lot of them survived." He's speaking at this year's How The Light Gets In festival.

Usury pure and simple: Student loans: ‘My debt rose £20,000 to £77,000 even though I’m paying’ Millions of graduates are trapped by ballooning debts, as their repayments are dwarfed by the interest added www.theguardian.com/money/2026/j... #DebtStrike

Some very useful items here for parliamentary historians. Many thanks to @anterotesis.bsky.social!

New #OpenAccess #LegalHistory from @uolpress.bsky.social Law and Justice in the 1950s Case Studies From a Neglected Decade uolpress.co.uk/book/law-and... #History

Und thus, modernity comes to a close just like it started, with a guy ranting at windmills

Interesting example of how data collection procedures affects economic measurements: #oeconomica #inflation

Always great to see digitisations made freely available online! I scanned the HLHS back run of newsletters and journals a few years ago: www.huddersfieldhistory.org.uk/publications...

New from Bristol Record Society: Documents on the Bristol Slave Trade archive.org/details/bris... Really great to see BRS publish #OpenAccess on @archive.org ! #History #EnslavedHistory

We're in Employment Tribunal about this. And a civil case has been filed. It's just so terribly slow in getting to a conclusion to erase that grey area that VCs are so gleefully exploiting.

Why hasn't this vicious policy of a number of university managements, been taken to court yet? What are #UCU @ucu.org.uk doing about this?

Interview with William #Kentridge: hero-magazine.com/article/2892...

📢📢 This Wednesday marks the start of our Third International Congress on the History of Prisons and Punitive Institutions at @upna.bsky.social Here is a summary of the programme. You can download the detailed version in English here: www.unavarra.es/congreso-his... See you soon in Pamplona!

This craven cowardice is not only morally repugnant, but also completely at odds with the Royal Society’s own code of conduct. By failing to uphold the code, Sir Paul Nurse looks like he’s himself also breaching it - both are bringing the Society into disrepute. royalsociety.org/-/media/abou...

#ICYMI earlier this week, Robin Eagles of the Georgian Lords posted on uncovering the lives of Black Londoners, among them one who almost certainly joined John London in voting in the 1749 Westminster by-election: historyofparliament.com/2026/01/05/s... #HistParl #BSECS2026

A library based on access to subscription databases that vanish completely as soon as the payments stop is, in an important sense, not a library. It is not a repository. It's just a viewing platform.

Can confirm that Google Books is remarkably good at releasing public domain books if evidence of their public domain-ness is presented along the lines John suggests - citing Crown Copyright duration, or author date of death (perhaps with a wikipedia link).

As it was asked about on Mastodon, here's the form to get Google Books to release #PublicDomain titles: support.google.com/websearch/an... NB: Snippet view shows Google has a digital version to release. NB 2: cite relevent law, or proof that author died over 70 (in UK) years ago.

A thread of #PublicDomain books I've got Google Books to make fully and freely available this year. Published by HMSO A Brief Guide to Official Publications London, HMSO, 1960. books.google.co.uk/books?id=q20...

“I’m a developer for a major food delivery app. The 'Priority Fee' and 'Driver Benefit Fee' go 100% to the company. The driver sees $0 of it.” www.reddit.com/r/confession...

Not a deep dive, but interesting glance at non-university-based history data sets: ‘The hidden engine room’: how amateur historians are powering genealogical research www.theguardian.com/education/20... #History

#OTD in 1819: The Seditious Meetings Act is passed. One of the 'Six Acts' passed to suppress radical movements in the wake of Peterloo. statutes.org.uk/site/the-sta... #History

Garden of Earthly Delights

Excellent summary of the miserable mismanagement of the British Library: dosh for the execs, dregs for the workers. Oh, and a series of CEOs with no library background, and -- no chief librarian? Why yes! That sounds like a brilliant set of priorities. www.standard.co.uk/news/london/...

My forthcoming book— For which I began research in 2006. Is now posted on the website for Princeton University Press. Cover will be added soon. The King’s Slaves: The British Empire & the Origins of American Slavery

A nice surprise this morning: my article on prison reform from below is out! I believe it’s open access but let me know if you can’t get a copy and would like one. academic.oup.com/histres/adva...

150 years ago! #OnThisDay in London's parklife: 1000s destroy enclosure fences, Hackney Downs, 1875, helping preserve the Downs as an open space wp.me/p74yfw-q2 Read more about the campaign in our pamphlet “Green Beneath the Skies” Buy online here: pasttensehistories.bigcartel.com/product/gree...

Forthcoming in 2026 and 2027: Major #Duchamp retrospective at Moma, Philly, and Pompidou: www.moma.org/calendar/exh... #Dada

Alongside the word of the year we should have “the word that has lost the most of its meaning this year”. I nominate “ceasefire”.

The London based MayDay Rooms’ anarcho-punk archive is a valuable resource for radical cultures and politics today, writes Seth Wheeler in The Wire 503/4 Read the full article online: www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/c...

Today, I did an interview on the picket line with a reporter from the the ‘Evening Standard’. I prefaced it with the fact that I left the ES (I worked in the cuttings archive and did research for the journos) 20 years ago to join the British Library: I *still* earn *much* less now than I did then.

Solidarity with the staff at the @britishlibrary.bsky.social, the people who actually make the place work, in the face of wretched management.

The far right campaign to excuse or support slavery continues to make hash of historical research. Important thread: #BadHistory