Dr Elizabeth Bruton, Co-curator / Researcher, Harry’s Story: A Scientist Lost to War, Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford has made available her recent presentation entitled Hydrophones and piezoelectricity: Ernest Rutherford and anti-submarine innovations in the Royal Navy during World War One.
You can access a copy here.
Based on a 2012 Oxford conference, the forthcoming book ‘War in the Balkans: Conflict and Diplomacy before World War 1’ by James Pettifer and Tom Buchanan will be published shortly by I B Tauris.
This Special AHS Classics Virtual Issue highlights the important contribution that Australian Historical Studies has made to our understanding of Australia and the First World War. Drawing on over forty years of scholarship and debate, the volume showcases key articles by some of Australia’s most significant historians of the war and the Anzac tradition that emerged from it. These articles show that the adaptability of the Anzac legend requires investigation and caution in the production of new histories of events a century distant.
The articles in this virtual special issue are currently free to view until the end of December 2015. For further information and to access the articles, click here.
Fulwell Acoustic Mirror is a 4m high concave concrete dish, constructed on the coast at Fulwell, Sunderland. Completed in 1917, it was designed to act as an acoustic early warning system against air raids, after a bomb dropped by a Zeppelin over the Wheatsheaf area of Sunderland in April 1916 left 22 people dead and more than 100 injured.
After many years of neglect the acoustic mirror’s crumbling condition led to the structure being included on the Historic England (previously known as English Heritage) Heritage at Risk register. This triggered a partnership between Sunderland City Council, Historic England and the Heritage Lottery Fund programme – Limestone Landscapes, which has resulted in a glorious restoration, unveiled on 9 June 2015.
See here for the full story.
On the strength of a conference at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) this year, Alan Jeffreys (Imperial War Museum) will produce a volume for Helion Press later in 2015 on the first year of the First World War, entitled East, West and South of Suez: the Indian Army in the First World War. Dr Rob Johnson has written a chapter on the Indian Army (1914-1915).
More details will be posted to the Books page of this site, when available.
BBC News – WW1: How firms cashed in on the war
In an age before TV bombarded consumers with commercials, newspapers and magazines such as Punch and the Illustrated London News were the battleground for firms desperate to see off their rivals.
But just how did they pitch their wares to the public and the men enlisted in the armed forces?
For further information, see here.
One of our research clusters is The Global-Imperial Dimension. If you are interesting in carrying out research in this area, then see here. We have a number of academics who are working on the mobilization of culture, ideas and information: propaganda; and the role of the press, including Prof. James Belich, Dr. John Darwin and Dr. Jan-Georg Deutsch. Please contact them directly to discuss your research interests and see here for more information on applying to the University of Oxford with your doctoral proposal.
British Library Doctoral Open Days are a chance for new doctoral students to discover the British Library’s unique research materials.
See here for more information on the series of events.