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Excommunication in Thirteenth-Century England by Felicity Hill

Excommunication in thirteenth-century England: a volatile tool

By Felicity Hill

Reactions to excommunication in thirteenth-century England varied considerably, but its consequences for society as well as individuals were significant. The fact that sentences needed to be publicised so that communities knew who to avoid made excommunication a valuable tool of mass communication. However, when the sanction was used unfairly or vengefully, this publicity shone a light on such abuses, with potentially damaging consequences for the church.

The Curse of the Somers

Was it murder? Why a US Navy hanging resonates nearly 200 years later

By James P. Delgado

In 1842, The US brig Somers, commanded by Alexander Slidell Mackenzie was the site of what may have been the only planned mutiny in the US Navy’s history. The repercussions of the Somers Affair had long felt effects, and inspired Herman Melville’s Billy Budd.

Manhattan Phoenix: The Great Fire of 1835 and the Emergence of Modern New York by Daniel S. Levy

Boss Tweed and the “Forty Thieves” of New York City

By Daniel S. Levy

Boss Tweedborn—William Magear Tweed—and the “Tweed Ring” comprised of 20 aldermen and 20 assistant alderman in Tamanay Hall dominated New York politics for profit in the second half of the 1800s.

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts

Salvator Mundi: the journey of a false saviour

By Robert B. Simon

Discovering the provenance of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi formed a significant part of the book that I co-authored with Margaret Dalivalle and Martin Kemp. Determining which records and references pertained to the original and which to the many copies and derivations of the painting required the unraveling of dozens of documentary threads, intertwined and occasionally knotted, stretching across the centuries.

"The World According to Proust" by Joshua Landy, published by Oxford University Press

Big, wonderful, difficult questions (and answers) about life in Proust [interactive]

By Sarah Butcher

For the 100th anniversary of Marcel Proust’s death, Joshua Landy explores the existential questions posed by “In Search of Lost Time” to show how Proust’s novel connects to our contemporary lives.

SHAPE

Interview with Dr Molly Morgan Jones, Director of Policy at the British Academy on SHAPE

By Molly Morgan Jones

At OUP, we are the largest university press publisher of SHAPE disciplines. Back in 2021, we joined the SHAPE initiative along with the British Academy, LSE, the Arts Council, and other key partners to show our support and advocacy for these vitally important areas of research and scholarship.

Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire

Civil war and the end of the Roman Empire

By Adrastos Omissi

Adrastos Omissi argues that the collapse of the West Roman Empire in the fifth century AD was caused not, primarily, by invasions of external “barbarians” from Germanic Europe, but was rather a product of the endemic civil wars that sprang up in the Roman Empire from the third century AD onwards.

Walking Among Pharoahs and Tutankhamun

Exploring Ancient Egypt with Carter, Reisner, and Co. [interactive map]

By Ashendri Wickremasinghe

Travel back in time to Ancient Egypt and explore pyramids with hidden burial chambers, colossal royal statue, miniscule gold jewelry, and much more.

LGBT Victorians: Sexuality and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Archives

LGBTQ+ Victorians in the archives

By Simon Joyce

The first challenge that confronts researching LGBTQ+ Victorians in the archives is the question: where to look? Simon Joyce explores how to access more accurate, reliable information about LGBTQ+ Victorians.

Mussolini in Myth and Memory

The March on Rome: commemoration or celebration?

By Paul Corner

Throughout Europe reaction to the March on Rome was, inevitably, mixed, with some appalled by the violence and the total disregard the fascists showed for parliamentary politics, while others—such as those among British conservative opinion—thought that the fascist government would bring much-needed “order” to what they condescendingly saw as typically Mediterranean chaos. Many right-wing European politicians looked on Mussolini and to his mode of achieving power with admiration. One man in particular was greatly impressed by the March on Rome and even hoped to emulate it. This was Adolf Hitler.

Oxford Academic

Transparency in open access at OUP

By Rhodri Jackson

As a not-for-profit university press which publishes over 75% of its journals on behalf of scholarly societies and other organisations, OUP is committed to a transparent approach to OA. The transition to OA can appear opaque, steeped in jargon and complexity, and we see a major part of our role in the move to OA as being as open and clear as possible.

Egyptology at the turn of the century [podcast]

By Steven Filippi and Sarah Butcher

On November 1, 1922 Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team of excavators began digging in a previously undisturbed plot of land in the Valley of the Kings. For decades, archaeologists had searched for the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun with no success, and that November was to be Carter’s final attempt to locate the lost treasures. What Carter ultimately discovered—the iconic sarcophagus, the mummy that inspired whispers of a curse, and the thousands of precious artifacts—would shape Egyptian politics, the field of archaeology, and how museums honor the past for years to come.

The London Restaurant, 1840-1914

COVID-19 and the London restaurant: a Victorian perspective

By Brenda Assael

The last two years have proved the restaurant business is nothing if not adaptable. In my residential London neighbourhood, a popular Indian restaurant quickly moved to take-away meals once the first wave of the pandemic hit, a pattern many other businesses followed in a fight for survival. Theirs is a small-scale, family operation; factors that […]

Orwell & Empire

The Mahatma and the Policeman: how did George Orwell view Gandhi?

By Douglas Kerr

George Orwell served for five years in the 1920s as an officer in the Imperial Police in Burma, at that time part of the British Raj. He was to write about the Empire as an unjustifiable despotism. Mahatma Gandhi did more than anyone else to bring about the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the first step in the dismantling of the Empire. Orwell should have seen Gandhi as a comrade in arms, a fellow anti-imperialist, even a hero. Instead he speaks of Gandhi with suspicion, hostility, irritation, and ” sort of aesthetic distaste.” Why?

The Fasces

The radical reinterpretation of the fasces in Mussolini’s Italy

By T. Corey Brennan

In November 1914, when Benito Mussolini, then prominent as a revolutionary socialist, tried to mobilize popular opinion for Italy to intervene in World War I, he gave the name “Autonomous Fasci of Revolutionary Action” to his disparate supporters. The term “fascio” (plural “fasci”) was then common in Italy’s political lexicon, in its core meaning of “bundle”, to denote a loosely-organized group grounded in a common ideology.

The Absolutely Indispensable Man

When Ralph Bunche met Princess Margaret

By Kal Raustiala

As the Under-Secretary General of the UN, Ralph Bunche was one of the leaders in the fight to end empire in the second half of the Twentieth Century, In 1965, he had the opportunity to speak to Princess Margaret about the role of the British Empire in the world.