Evan
@evansmithhist.bsky.social
7.3K followers 2.9K following 1.9K posts
Academic/Writer - History/Politics/Criminology - British, Australian and southern African (plus transnational) history - he/him - top 2% researchers 2024 (Stanford/Elsevier rankings) - views own - cult classic, not best seller
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evansmithhist.bsky.social
With the publication of our book 'In Solidarity, Under Suspicion: The British Far Left from 1956' next month, @manchesterup.bsky.social are offering a 30% discount using the discount code below!

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179593/
Reposted by Evan
radonlinearchives.bsky.social
New Australian collections added

• Citizen Soldier (CPA paper for WWII soldiers)
• Labor Vanguard (WA Australian Labor Federation, 1910s)
• Out of Work (CPA unemployed paper, 1920s)
• Seamen’s Strike Bulletin (Victoria, 1919)
• The Red Star (WA CPA paper, 1930s)

hatfulofhistory.com/radical-onli...
radical online collections and archives
I am very interested in the growing amount of radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised. As there are so many and from many different places, I thought it would b…
hatfulofhistory.com
evansmithhist.bsky.social
I propose a moratorium on books that I would like to read being published until I have got through all of them.

*adding to my "to be read" pile*
leroylynch.bsky.social
This looks interesting, a book by Colin Kidd due next year.

Twilight of the Dons | Princeton University Press
press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...
The rise to power and eventual fall from grace of the Oxbridge intellectual
After World War II, the academics of Oxford and Cambridge—the dons—formed an unusual kind of university-based, establishment-connected intelligentsia. Unlike intellectuals in other countries, often antiestablishment outsiders, the dons of Oxbridge enjoyed secure and even cosy connections with those in power. In Twilight of the Dons, Colin Kidd examines the golden age of Britain’s Oxford- and Cambridge-based intellectual elites—and how their influence waned when Oxbridge’s links to the establishment began to fray. Kidd explores a series of episodes and themes that range from the dons’ confrontations with student protesters in the 1960s to their reaction to the rise of Thatcherism in the 1980s. The cast of characters includes many of twentieth-century Britain’s most famous intellectuals—Elizabeth Anscombe, Isaiah Berlin, Edmund Leach, J. H. Plumb and Hugh Trevor-Roper, to name just a few.

Kidd describes the multiple important roles played by dons in World War II, the countercultural force of convert Catholicism and the strange phenomenon of Tory Marxism. He examines the dons’ attitudes toward America and France—as seen in their engagement in the debates over the Kennedy assassination and the awkward reception of Lévi-Strauss’s anthropology. When Oxbridge came under assault, it was first by a modernizing, technocratic Left in the early 1960s, then by student radicals in the late 1960s and finally by the Thatcherite right—in whose rise, Kidd shows, some dons were complicit. As deference to Oxbridge intelligentsia declined, a reassessment of the place of dons in British public life began.
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Asking for a colleague, is there literature out there on using police interview transcripts as a historical source, particularly from a methodological perspective?

#historians #histcrim 🗃️
Reposted by Evan
evansmithhist.bsky.social
UK safety PSA ads from the 1970s-80s were infamously scary and bleak, but I just learnt today THAT THIS WAS A REAL AD IN NEW ZEALAND.

youtu.be/u51OxZF1ltI?...
New Zealand ACC Ad | Fruit - E - Bars
YouTube video by ET TV
youtu.be
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Having recently filled my new book shelves after being in storage, I’ve decided to take a photo of an unpacked book a day. Going across my shelves, left to right, unit by unit.

Day 56 - Displaced Comrades by Ebony Nilsson

Join me for another each day (sometimes with a slight delay)
Cover of Displaced Comrades: Politics and Surveillance in the Lives of Soviet Refugees in the West by Ebony Nilsson, with photograph of women in long jacket and wearing sunglasses, acting like a possible spy
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Please use in-text referencing
unenthusiast.com
In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/
hammancheez.bsky.social
"The chancellor approved it"
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Yes, I always forget that Australian road safety ads can be brutal. But some are state specific, so some of the infamous ones (such as those made by the TAC) don’t get shown everywhere across the country.
evansmithhist.bsky.social
But that had a jaunty jingle!
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Apparently there was a whole series of them in the 1990s-2000s. Has someone written about this? Would read.

youtu.be/9ciomPP8MyE?...
NZ ACC Thinksafe TV Ad Campaign from 1990s-2000s
YouTube video by Eddie Gardner
youtu.be
evansmithhist.bsky.social
UK safety PSA ads from the 1970s-80s were infamously scary and bleak, but I just learnt today THAT THIS WAS A REAL AD IN NEW ZEALAND.

youtu.be/u51OxZF1ltI?...
New Zealand ACC Ad | Fruit - E - Bars
YouTube video by ET TV
youtu.be
Reposted by Evan
frankbongiorno.bsky.social
Past/Present is an Australian Historical Association initiative, in partnership with the Guardian, looking at current events in historical context. Here's an excellent piece by Roland Burke on early international efforts to deal with misinformation/disinformation.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The fledgling UN tried to rein in mass-scale misinformation. The world turned its back and is now paying the price | Roland Burke
The ruinous result of the US approach to freedom of information and media has made anti-democratic contagion impossible to ignore
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by Evan
radonlinearchives.bsky.social
Hello BlueSky! Starting this account to showcase the ever growing list of radical online archives and collections. Nearly 1000 collections from the around the world are listed at the link below.

Please follow for updates and collection highlights!

hatfulofhistory.com/radical-onli...
radical online collections and archives
I am very interested in the growing amount of radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised. As there are so many and from many different places, I thought it would b…
hatfulofhistory.com
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Yes, it was a gerontocracy and lumbering along at the stage. Even though people might think that Andropov being 69 when he died in power is not that old by today’s standards.
evansmithhist.bsky.social
For comparison and using the original Andropov example, the average of the Soviet Politburo in the early 1980s was 69.
evansmithhist.bsky.social
This got me interested in average age of politicians.

Since 1979, the average age of UK MPs in House of Commons has been between 48 and 52.

The average age of MPs in Australian federal parliament is 50.

The average age of a US Senator is 64 and for a member of the US House of Reps, it is 57.
mininghistory.bsky.social
This is a good example of changing perceptions of old age and gerontocracy. Andropov was 69 when he died.
evansmithhist.bsky.social
In the early 1980s, the USSR increasingly became a gerontocracy. After Yuri Andropov died in February 1984, the small US group, the Spartacist League, published this tribute to the dead Soviet leader. The line ‘He made no overt betrayals on behalf of imperialism’ is such an oddly phrased sentence!
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Should the Online Radical Archives list have its own BlueSky?
evansmithhist.bsky.social
#historians #history 🗃️

Once again I'm looking for recommendations of newly digitised archives/collections relating to radical history (broadly defined).

Nearly 1000 online and open access collections of radical historical documents already listed!

hatfulofhistory.com/radical-onli...
radical online collections and archives
I am very interested in the growing amount of radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised. As there are so many and from many different places, I thought it would b…
hatfulofhistory.com
evansmithhist.bsky.social
Like a bookshop or just a venue?

When last in UK, I did book launches at Housmanns, Bookmarks and Five Leaves (in Nottingham), as well as previous event at IHR in the seminar room.
Reposted by Evan
historyworkshop.org.uk
Historical research often comes at an emotional cost.

To commemorate World Mental Health Day, here's a discussion from our archives on how ideas about wellbeing can shape the historian's craft in radical ways.
Emotions, Vulnerabilities and Care in Sensitive Research
Research is emotional. Five history researchers reflect on how new guidelines on wellbeing have shaped their practice in productive and radical ways
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
Reposted by Evan
evansmithhist.bsky.social
With the publication of our book 'In Solidarity, Under Suspicion: The British Far Left from 1956' next month, @manchesterup.bsky.social are offering a 30% discount using the discount code below!

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526179593/