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Matthew Kelly

@matthewjkelly.bsky.social

2.9K followers 820 following 190 posts

Historian of Britain & Ireland at Northumbria University. Beginning new work on the history of ornithology in twentieth-century Britain.

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Political science 33%

Sociology 31%

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · Dec 23

We can all identify with this harassed fella. ‘The Minor Official’ from George Birmingham’s ‘Irishmen All’ (1913). Illustration by Jack B. Yeats.

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2h

A thought: because music & TV now so accessible online, blunting wistfulness, material objects have become more freighted.

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2h

Not sure what happened to mine and came across a full set in a charity shop in Kingsbridge last summer. Decided not to buy. Didn’t want to lose the catch in the throat of an occasional encounter. Managing affect…

Got Seven Dials on order.

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2h

So sorry Cath. Hellish. Look after yourself.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2h

Really nice piece, Laura. I think it’ll be widely read!

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3h

Published 75 years ago today. These early 80s covers remain so evocative for me. The shaggy hair (Aslan’s too), the knitwear, and the gorgeous burnished colouring. I can see now the children represent a middle-class, mildly boho ideal. Who doesn’t want Peter’s jumper?

Early 80s cover of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe

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Reposted by Jonathan Portes, Ben H. Ansell, Albert Weale , and 4 more Jonathan Portes, Ben H. Ansell, Albert Weale, Lesley A. Hall, Matthew Kelly, Colm O’Cinneíde, Nick Clarke

Chris Giles @chrisgiles.ft.com · 22h

There is no need for a moral panic about the UK's welfare system.

Far from perfect but recent discourse is nuts

Spending is controlled, not spiralling

Worklessness is near record lows

My column www.ft.com/content/ee67...

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 1d

He likes a bold title!

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 2d

The more I see it, the more I LOVE this title.

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Reposted by Matthew Kelly

Laura Tisdall @lauratisdall.bsky.social · 2d

Hello all! You can get 25% off the already surprisingly reasonable price of WE HAVE COME TO BE DESTROYED if you pre-order at @waterstones.bsky.social between 14th and 17th October using the discount code OCTOBER25! Pls share. Link here: www.waterstones.com/book/we-have... #skystorians #histchild 🗃

Waterstones flyer with cover of book and description of deal as explained in text.

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 3d

Someone on here saying the other day that we don’t talk about the aristocracy anymore, despite the stranglehold it retains on so much land. Woolly discourse of ‘the elite’ obscures more than it explains…

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 4d

Fascinating. For me, particularly struck by material on how promoted healthy working environment: light & fresh air. Factory floor as permeable rather than sealed off from the outside. Not really thought about Port Sunlight as a title before… Congratulations!

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Reposted by Steve Carver

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 4d

Great piece from @marthagill.bsky.social on the state of Britain’s National Parks. Shocked highest levels of sewage discharge are on Dartmoor. Good account of historical reasons park authorities have such limited powers to manage greatest threats to park ecologies.

observer.co.uk/news/columni...

In our national parks sewage flows while the funds for co...

Underfunded, over-farmed and politically sidelined, Britain’s most treasured landscapes need more than protection

observer.co.uk

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 4d

Agree, & what I certainly admired abt My Struggle is how it captures the range of childhood & young adult experience, especially moments of happiness, even rapture, amid the ordinary or grim day to day. That, to my mind, is his achievement & I think why the sequence resonated so.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

KOK is highly observant & has an almost superhuman capacity for putting words on the page, but if a great novelist makes the world anew, KOK leaves the reader where they started!

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

Good characterisation in this one but is it because he does ordinariness so well? Their thoughts are ordinary, they muse on stuff as we all do. And when the prose is descriptively adorned, it‘s with commonplace images and metaphor.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

Read 1000s of pages of this guy & still can’t decide if he‘s any good. The thought essays are sophmoronic, & the supernatural aspects in this one tedious, but the quotidian banalities & anti-style style do compel, though Claire Lowdon’s take in the TLS hits a target. Is this reading as scrolling?

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

Immediately want to backtrack on ‘favourite’, but it’s a good un.

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

Ha ha. Such a good example
of the weird little worlds social media creates. Given Bluesky interactions more sparing than the old place, hard to imagine how many people found this funny. I did.

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

Subsequent editions. I prefer the second, though lived with the Jack Yeats original for years.

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

A fresh look at development. What happened on the ground? How did local people interact with and exercise influence over development agencies?

Past and Present @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · 9d

New on advance access: "Vernacular development, drought, and US technical assistance in postcolonial Lebanon"

by Owain Lawson (Lehigh University)

doi.org/10.1093/past...

Vernacular development, drought, and US technical assistance in postcolonial Lebanon*

Abstract. Between 1951–55, the US Bureau of Reclamation conducted research in Lebanon to plan a hydroelectric and irrigation scheme using Lebanon's largest

doi.org

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

Rethinking labour politics, political violence, and brutalisation thesis!

Past and Present @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · 14d

On advance access: "Spanish Pistolerismo and Labour Violence in Post-War Europe, 1917–1923"

by Arturo Zoffmann Rodriguez (University of Lisbon)

doi.org/10.1093/past...

Spanish Pistolerismo and Labour Violence in Post-War Europe, 1917–1923*

Abstract. Political violence in Europe in 1917–23 has typically been associated with the destabilizing impact of the First World War. However, some forms o

doi.org

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

A big, bold #envhist article on the seismic impacts of big infrastructure. You’ll
feel the earth move as you read.

Past and Present @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · 8d

From the current issue: “Dams and the Deep Earth: The 1967 Koyna Earthquake and Human Agency in the Anthropocene”

by Elizabeth Chatterjee and Sachaet Pandey-Geeta Mantraraj (University of Chicago)

doi.org/10.1093/past...

Dams and the Deep Earth: The 1967 Koyna Earthquake and Human Agency in the Anthropocene*

Abstract. On 11 December 1967, a large earthquake devastated the village of Koynanagar in Maharashtra, western India. Many blamed the new Koyna hydroelectr

doi.org

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Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 5d

Delighted to see this out!

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Reposted by Matthew Kelly, Zen Faulkes

Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 6d

It's also not "just another" extinction, it's the first from mainland Europe in centuries. CENTURIES.

And there will be others within our lifetime.

That's biodiversity loss.

We'll never hear this sound, ever again xeno-canto.org/398794

XC398794 Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris)

Awful wind noise in the original! See sonogram and notes of the recording circumstances on p12 of Gretton A. (1991) The ecology and conservation of the Slender-billed Curlew (Numenius tenuirostris). ...

xeno-canto.org

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Reposted by Matthew Kelly

Past and Present @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · 6d

New on advance access: "Air Travel, Statelessness, and the Rights Claims of Ugandan Asians, c.1973"

by @riakapoor.bsky.social (@qmul.bsky.social)

#OpenAccess

doi.org/10.1093/past...

Validate User

doi.org

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Reposted by Martin Jung, Tom Shakespeare, Peter Stoett , and 3 more Martin Jung, Tom Shakespeare, Peter Stoett, Matthew Kelly, Ben Kaden, Alexandre Klein

Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 6d

Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.

Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology

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Reposted by Matthew Kelly

Past and Present @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · 8d

Dams and the Deep Earth: The 1967 Koyna Earthquake and Human Agency in the Anthropocene*

Abstract. On 11 December 1967, a large earthquake devastated the village of Koynanagar in Maharashtra, western India. Many blamed the new Koyna hydroelectr

doi.org

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Reposted by Matthew Kelly

Past and Present @pastpresentsoc.bsky.social · 9d

New on advance access: "Vernacular development, drought, and US technical assistance in postcolonial Lebanon"

by Owain Lawson (Lehigh University)

doi.org/10.1093/past...

Vernacular development, drought, and US technical assistance in postcolonial Lebanon*

Abstract. Between 1951–55, the US Bureau of Reclamation conducted research in Lebanon to plan a hydroelectric and irrigation scheme using Lebanon's largest

doi.org

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 10d

This is from the Addison Report on National Parks (1931).

He was not wrong.

Reposted by Katrina Navickas

Matthew Kelly @matthewjkelly.bsky.social · 11d

This is a very clear account of how government policy has already reduced access to degrees in History & other SHAPE subjects for members of marginalised communities and how new moves risk making matters worse still.

Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 11d

This week, the Society's President Lucy Noakes wrote in response to Bridget Phillipson's Labour conference speech - and its implications for history and the humanities in UK higher education bit.ly/3KBX7Fw

#Skystorians

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