Black's History Week

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart continue their exploration of the English countryside and discuss how the government has increased its control over it.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart travel outside of the English town to explore the English countryside, and how it has been perceived and depicted.

English towns are still recovering from the legacy of the pandemic. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss whether more centralised or decentralised government provides the answers to their economic woes.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss English towns in the final decades of the 20th century, from suburbia to inner city crime.

In the 1980s-90s Britain deindustrialised, changing the English town forever.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart explain how English towns gained cultural dynamism in the 1960s, and how some of them underwent economic decline in the 1980s.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss post-war English towns, the drive for urban redevelopment, the rise of modernism, and the birth of new towns.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss English houses from the 1920s to the 1950s — how to heat them, how to feed their inhabitants and how to stop them from being levelled by German bombs.

The expansion of the suburbs in early 20th century England had wide-ranging impacts on social and economic life.

The late 19th century saw the rise of the English middle class shape urban development.

As English cities grew, the need for social reform and sanitation grew with them. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk sewers, urbanism and do-goodery.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the politics of urban life in the nineteenth century, from the condition of the poor to concerns about the effects of alcohol.

19th century English Towns were more than political and industrial centres, they came to shape and influence our collective imagination. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss the English city in history and in literature.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart ask whether the eighteenth century English town really offered a higher quality of life. Fortunes could be made, but there was also conflict and disillusionment.

London expanded and ports boomed, but many provincial towns lagged behind — Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss the uneven progress of urban England in the eighteenth century.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the politics of British urban life in the 17th and 18th centuries. How were townspeople represented, and how did they differ from ruralites?

England's urban landscape was forever transformed by the ravages of plague, and the march of reform. Jeremy Blacks joins Graham Stewart to discuss the 17th century town.

Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss English towns during the Civil War, and how the royalist-parliamentarian divide ran through every community.

The 16th century was a time of economic, demographic and religious ferment and change for English towns. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart for another in his ongoing series on English urban history.

The medieval English town was subject to fire, flood, plague — and revolution. Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss how growing wealth fueled urban conflict.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart continue discussing the history of the English town, from the Saxon period to the Norman era and the early Medieval period

Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss the birth, development and decline of British towns in the Roman and Dark Ages.

Must a city have a cathedral? Must a place with a cathedral be a city? Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the often contested evolution and definition of English towns and their historical significance.

In this new series on the history of English towns, Professor Jeremy Black talks about various aspects of town life, including social experiences, economic opportunities, political views, and cultural aspirations.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the future of higher education. How can institutions be more efficient and effective? Find out in this final episode on our mini-series on the academia.

Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss why the teaching of military history in decline at our universities.

In a new episode of their series on higher education, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the pathologies of university administration, grade inflation and why “older” does not always mean “better”

Jeremy Black, historian of Exeter University, reflects on his own experience of the shifting demands and priorities on campus.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss declining scholarly standards, the state of peer review and the sycophantic treatment of subpar work.

From perverse incentives and failing financial models to the declining focus on teaching and the student experience, Jeremy Black explores what's gone wrong at British universities.

In the first episode of this two part series, Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the financial, corporate and cultural forces undermining the quality of British and American higher education.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the decline of waterways in the 20th Century as competing transport systems vie for government support and investment.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss how, in competition with the railways, British canals and canal boats were adapted to embrace steam power.

On this week's Black's History Week podcast, continuing our series on the history of British waterways. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to discuss how Britain created a national system of canals connecting resources, industry, cities and maritime trade.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart guide the boat of their new series on waterways into the 1800s, and discuss the politics and economics of the development of the British canal network.

In the second episode of their new series on canals, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss travel, commerce and innovation on the rivers of Tudor and Stuart Britain

All aboard! Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart begin a new series on canals by discussing the importance of transport on rivers in medieval Britain.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the bleak state of roads in modern Britain. Infrastructure is underfunded. People who are dependent on cars are being neglected. The future of electric vehicles is uncertain. Are we crawling to a standstill?

Jeremy Black discusses with Graham Stewart how motorways and bypasses changed getting about Britain from the late 1950s to the 1990s.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the slow development of British roads and automobiles in the 20th Century, the gradual increase in affordability, and how films and literature magnified the romance of the motor car.

The 19th Century is most famous for its railways, but Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart are here to tell us that roads were significant as well. How did they develop, in scale and in quality? What sort of science and engineering was involved? And what accidents took place?

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss whether turnpikes transformed travel in eighteenth century Britain or represented a means of revenue-raising from traffic whilst offering marginal improvement in return?

On the long journey from the middle ages to the early modern period, the British road underwent radical changes in both purpose and design. Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart walk the winding path of British transport history.

What have the Romans done for us? For one thing, they built a lot of roads. In the first episode of a new series of podcasts on transport, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the development of British roads.

Ridley Scott's Napoleon bends history to breaking point. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk historical fact and fiction.

How does geopolitics help us to understand international relations today? In the last episode of their series on geopolitics, Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart attempt to transcend the glib explanations one finds elsewhere to reflect on technology, conflicting interests and the evolution of thought in the field.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the subtle nature of Chinese geopolitics, with its debt servitude and its self-serving propaganda.

The 1990s were supposed to be the decade of American triumph – and for a time, it seemed like it was. Professor Jeremy Black joins Graham Stewart to talk post-Cold War geopolitics.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss the Cold War in the 1980s, its different military and diplomatic manifestations and the weaknesses of elegant geopolitical narratives.

Professor Jeremy Black and Graham Stewart discuss Ostpolitik and Atlanticism in a post-Vietnam age and the surprising level of agency enjoyed by the less powerful states in the Cold War.