The feature that arguably most defines the ‘postmodernist turn’ in historical studies is its engagement with the question of objectivity in historical inquiry.

Liberal Party founder Robert Menzies’ creed of Australian liberalism was informed by the ideas of three thinkers from Victorian Britain.

When people today imagine the ‘Renaissance’, they typically think of the transitional period that ushered in the glorious modern era, and marked the end of what Petrarch termed the ‘Dark Ages’. However, the reality is far less definite than this perspective allows. Seb Falk, in his book, The Light Ages, argues that the Medieval period is really one of ‘scientific interest and inquiry’. The twelfth century, in particular, stands out with its very own ‘renaissance’.

As a materials scientist, I’m interested in what can happen when new materials become available. Glass, steel and rare earth magnets are all examples of how innovation in materials science has driven technological change and, as a result, shaped global economies, politics and the environment.

Practitioners of what is often called 'histoire totale' (or ‘total history’)——have engaged with the question of contingency, determination, human agency, and change in several discernible phases.

How the Marxist notion of ‘historical materialism’ has developed is well illustrated by examining its conceptual engagement with cultural and intellectual history, which can be observed through at least two broad phases: what Anderson calls the ‘Classical Tradition’ and, later, what became known as ‘cultural Marxism’.

During the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the form of dualist heresy which later became known as ‘Catharism’ remained very much alive in the south of France despite the violent attempts of the Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229), and the subsequent Inquisition, to eradicate it.

Beneath the epic tales of heroes and gods, Troy’s true story is written in something far less glamorous – its rubbish.

When historians and the public think about the end of domestic slavery in west Africa, they often imagine colonial governors issuing decrees and missionaries working to end local traffic in enslaved people.

This paper covers a broad range of complex and related dynamics that collectively contributed to the conquests of Mexico and Peru by the Spanish.