Pax Economica "unsettles modern orthodoxies...it challenges the tendency to universalize England and the United States, and it invites engagement from scholars working on many different traditions" - Prof. Mo Moulton, American Historical Review 🙏 academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...

In 1776, a Scottish housepainter called James Aitken set out on a secret mission to destroy the British navy and win the War of Independence for the United States. His story is the core of my book, EMPIRE ABLAZE: The American Revolution and the Atlantic Working Class, out next summer with Verso!

Yesterday I submitted the proofs for Claiming Land, Claiming Water: Borders and the People Who Crossed Them in the Early Modern Atlantic. This volume I’m editing with Jessica Roney is out next spring with @pennpress.bsky.social, but here’s a peek now at our table of contents!

If you're bored tonight around 7pm EST, join Jessica Chopin Roney and I for a conversation about The Predatory Sea! 🗃️ librarycompany.org/events/fires...

Adults and children alike were pulled from their Chicago apartments, crying and screaming, during a large overnight raid that has left tenants and neighbors shaken. https://cnn.it/4pPCXIt

Look what we have here then.

If anyone needs a freelance researcher in London (or across the UK), I'm your person! I've reasonable rates, lots of archive experience & great recommendations from academics globally. I'm only teaching 1 module this term, as the job market is what it is. Therefore, I'm open to all work. DM me!

@zackpolanski.bsky.social nails it: "Britain is not broken because of migration. Britain is broken because of inequality. Because of an economy that allows billionaires to hoard wealth while millions struggle to get by. Because of a political class that has lost its nerve and forgotten its purpose."

Excited to release the conference programme for 'Ireland and the American Revolution: 250th Anniversary Perspectives'. There are only a few tickets left, so if you would like to attend I would suggest getting one as soon as possible. Attendance is free but booking is essential.

We have two further Starter Packs, also updated for the new academic year, covering: > Societies & groups for historians, international go.bsky.app/9T5F1Qc > UK institutes and research centres for historians go.bsky.app/RbfRrhm Again, recommendations for additional contacts are welcome 2/2

We've updated our three BlueSky starter packs for historians. Our principal list now includes details of 130+ societies and networks, based in the UK and Ireland, that advance the study, research and promotion of history go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd Please let us know if there are gaps. #Skystorians 1/2

Please wish me luck attempting to have a research day today in light of the cute to-do list that Past Rachel left me for next week

White House wants the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument to pretend it wasn’t a prison for Native Americans from the Great Plains ictnews.org/news/a-painf...

Stay tuned for the release of a brand new, first of its kind, fully independent NYC mayor general election poll from Zenith Research (me) and Public Progress Solutions (Amit Singh Bagga) this afternoon. More ways to cut the data of this race than you’ve seen in any previous poll.

Look, sometimes my work and life interests overlap and there's no helping it www.eater.com/restaurant-n...

For the record/thread: both Bob’s work&History Respawned are *essential* to the fact that we have a field called historical game studies, even if lots of historians still want to pretend it doesn’t exist. He gave me a platform to talk about RDR as a PhD student, and that matters a lot.

I wrote something new for History Respawned today. It's a review of a new book about Red Dead, but it's really about academic writing and historical game studies as a field. Please read, but also know, I really really really really REALLY didn't want to write this review.

I’m so excited for everything that lies ahead for BFW and Clio Digital Media. Check out our big news! #VastEarlyAmerica @lizcovart.bsky.social @kawulf.bsky.social

WHY is there an AI summary of my book when the book hasn’t been published and information about it is not yet available on the press website? What fresh hell is this?

We often forget the real victims of GenAI. Like, spare a thought for Inigo Montoya out there now trying to find the six-fingered man who killed his father. What he once thought was a lone killer is now a massive conspiracy.

From the parliamentary report on Iran. Just quickly — does anyone know if the UK has places that teach languages to a high level, and if so, what the government policy on them is?

INDIANA JONES AND THE GRADERS OF THE LAST MARK

CfP for maritimebritain.org Maritime Britain Project c.1550-1750 (led by Prof Craig Lambert, University of Southampton) end of project conference is live. See poster below & register your interest on Eventbrite in attending and/or giving a paper: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/maritime-b... #maritimehistory

This was a lot of fun--what great questions! I think I just finished answering the last ones. 😊 Highly recommend both bc a wide range of folks ask sincere questions and because Dan and the mods keep it serious and productive. Thanks @dhowlett1692.bsky.social and @askhistorians.bsky.social!

Within 2 hours of breaking news and @askhistorians.bsky.social users ask about historical events to understand the present. If any #SkyStorians want to get involved with AH to help people with Breaking Historical Questions, reach out- we'd love to have you participate www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...

The Royal Historical Society is a fellowship of professional historians. We welcome applications from historians working in education and many other sectors. Fellows make original contributions to historical understanding through research, public history and heritage bit.ly/4iOu51g #Skystorians

Timeline cleanse: meet Paz Purrmann

I just want a global 'turn all 'ai' off everywhere, categorically, no exceptions unless I individually approve them in triplicate' setting for all my devices

Come be @daviddoddington.bsky.social for a year while he's off on a Leverhulme. The university is a mess, but our colleagues and students are wonderful, and you get to work with me! krb-sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Sear...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

2025 has witnessed crisis after crisis. We are launching a new series: “Emergency Response” to contextualize emerging crises. Our team encourages health historians to use their expertise to confront threats to public health. More on how to contribute here: nursingclio.org/2025/05/21/i...

H-Diplo Roundtable on Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World

Re-posting for the lunch-time Bsky UK university reader crowd. The survey is short. It is not sweet. It raises rather a lot of questions. It answers none of them. 1/2

Good piece on the British Association for American Studies' decision to defend its commitment to EDI. 1/2

Alyssar this morning, a bit in the shade, but she's opening her amazing heart to us.

Devastating to read: this is what systematic food deprivation looks like in Gaza: -Fisherfolk and farmers killed by bombs -Nearly all of the livestock obliterated -80% of agricultural farmland damaged, polluted and barren -Food prices up over 1000% -Famine www.ft.com/content/48dc...

When you’re doing your references and you run out of steam:

There's not much time left to submit a proposal for our BrANCH-BGEAH conference in Cardiff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🚨 Bonus points for those spanning the long 19th century - from Independence to imperialism, women's rights to worker's activism, Harriet Tubman to Ida B. Wells... Find more info & details of how to apply👇

Trans women are women and no court judgement can change that. Without wanting to diminish the negative effect that legal oppression has on trans lives, there is no reason why lawyers and judges are qualified to make this argument over actual experts in the field.

A fringe group of bigoted weirdos have dragged British media, government, and law into their hateful obsession with trans people. Grim, depressing, and dangerous. Everyone with power in the UK who's played along should be ashamed of themselves.

At AASLH, we just launched the National Survey of History Practitioners to better understand the public history workforce. If you work at a U.S. history museum, historic site, or related org, tell us about you, your pay, and how you feel about your work. Please share! www.surveymonkey.com/r/NSHP2025

shout out to the many people who told me during grad school to stop studying tariffs and customs and to choose something more relevant

From life in Cuba under sanctions to liberal internationalism after USAID, here are this week's top picks in imperial and global history.

I hung up my DOGE termination letter near where I’m writing my book, as a reminder that the Humanities matters to a free and open society. Far worse than the end of my NEH grant is the wholesale gutting of the NEH itself, an incalculable loss that we must fight to prevent.

For UK folks, Trump has just Trussed the global economy

Took a deep dive on the 'History as it Happens' podcast placing Trump's tariffs and desire to annex Canada into dialogue with the GOP imperial protectionist politics of the 1890s and the 1890 McKinley Tariff, Trump's 'golden age'. historyasithappens.libsyn.com/o-no-canada-...

Our "Most Challenging to Catalog" winner, with great irony, came from Collection Services, and includes not only microfilm, and non-Western text, but also a yellow collection slip with a literal cry for "help!" from Conservation! Perhaps it's preserving, not cataloging that's trickiest here? 🤔 2/?