Modern history
Modern history at the University of Nottingham covers the period 1800–1945
This period spans from the Napoleonic wars of conquest to the atomic bomb, through industrialisation, nationalism, colonialism, genocide, revolution, and relativity.
This epoch lay the foundations - political, economic, cultural, social and scientific - of the contemporary world, and its legacies still profoundly shape our present-day lives.
The department has a significant number of modern historians who address the key moments, movements and processes of the era, taking place in Britain, Europe and globally, from a wide range of different perspectives. Individually, their projects examine the most important and relevant themes and questions concerning the modern era. Collectively, we ask ‘what was modernity?’, ‘how do historians research and understand change and continuity in the modern age?’ and ‘what is it to be modern?’.
Recent and current projects
You can read more about many of our exciting recent and current research projects on the modern period below. The Department has particular ‘clusters’ of research including:
- histories of visual culture (art, cinema, maps, photography);
- histories of landscape, environment and space (topography, travel and tourism, soil science, cartography, urban culture and governance, ‘motor cities’, green spaces, transnational activism);
- histories of industry, de-industrialisation, and labour (gender and work in Nazi Europe, the rise and fall of British coal mining, Southwell workhouse, John Player’s advertising, Raleigh cycles);
- and local and regional history (including community projects with former miners, on the Nottinghamshire anti-Apartheid movement, on Nottingham Castle, Victoria County History).
Modern history projects
| Project name | Academic staff involved |
|---|
| Ambassador David Bruce, the London Embassy and Diplomatic Practice, 1961-69 |
John Young |
| British amateur topographical art and landscape in North West Italy 1835-1915 |
Ross Balzaretti |
| British travellers in Liguria |
Ross Balzaretti |
| Centre for Hidden Histories – World War One Engagement Centre |
John Beckett,
Michael Noble |
| Cinema and medicine in Early Soviet Russia |
Anna Toropova |
| Coal and steelworkers study group |
Jörg Arnold |
| Coal Mining in Nottinghamshire |
David Amos |
| Collaboration with The Workhouse at Southwell |
Sarah Badcock |
| Curating Online Resources for Engagement and Learning (COREL) project |
Nick Baron |
| Digital urbanism and diasporas: walking the cultural heritage of Calcutta's riverfront |
Maiken Umbach |
| Florence Nightingale Comes Home for 2020 |
Anna Greenwood,
Richard Bates
|
| Historicizing trauma in colonial and post-colonial contexts |
Onni Gust |
| History of anti-Apartheid activism in Nottinghamshire |
Kate Law |
| Inherited Soil Surveys, Transdisciplinary Approaches in Zambia (InSTAnZa) |
Anna Greenwood, Maurice Hutton |
| John Player’s Advertising Archive Knowledge Transfer Partnership |
Elizabeth Harvey,
Chris Wrigley
|
| Making women work: gender, race and labour in Nazi-occupied Europe |
Elizabeth Harvey
|
| Mapping the Soviet: Cartography, Culture and Power from Lenin to Stalin, 1917-1953 |
Nick Baron |
| Motor Cities: Automobility and the Urban Environment in Birmingham, England, and Nagoya, Japan, c.1955–1973 |
Susan Townsend |
| Nottingham Castle project |
Richard Gaunt |
| Obscene Reading in Britain and France c.1900-1960 |
Harry Cocks |
| Photography as Political Practice in National Socialism |
Maiken Umbach,
Elizabeth Harvey |
| Press and Politics in West Germany: The papers of Marion Countess Dönhoff, 1946–2002 |
Elizabeth Harvey,
John Young |
| "The public opinion of the world": transnational citizen activism and diplomacy, 1890-1920 |
Daniel Hucker |
| The Raleigh Project |
Philip Riden |
| Remaking Fear City: The Crisis of Crime and the Transformation of New York City, 1965-1985 |
Joe Merton |
| Remembering Byron at his Bicentenary and Beyond |
Sam Hirst |
| The Social World of Nottingham's Historic Green Spaces: follow-on for impact and engagement project |
John Beckett |
| Theories, Ideologies and Politics of Spatial Planning in Russia and Germany, 1890s to 1945 |
Nick Baron |
The United States, Great Britain, and Intermestic Politics, 1977-85
|
Aaron Donaghy |
The Victoria County History
|
John Beckett,
Philip Riden |
| Understanding and Improving Public Engagement with Holocaust Photography |
Maiken Umbach,
Elizabeth Harvey
|
| Writing our History, Digging our Past: a Connected Communities Project |
Various |
Find out about all of our research projects
Image: Section from Hartmann Maschinenhalle 1868, Wikimedia Commons