Latest news about the Department and its members, such as new appointments, publications, book launches, awards, speaking engagements, media coverage and standings in world and national ranks. We are also on social media. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Latest news
2021 QS World University Rankings by Subject
In the latest rankings, LSE History continued to be placed 5th in the world for the second year running, ahead of Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley and Princeton. In the UK and in Europe, History at LSE held its third place, behind Cambridge and Oxford. Browse the 2021 QS World University Rankings by subejct
Molly Avery on Pinochet and El Salvador
PhD student Molly Avery was interviewed on the Historias Podcast of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS). She discussed her recent article Promoting a ‘Pinochetazo’ and ongoing PhD research on the international and transnational anticommunist networks during the Cold War in Latin America. Listen here
PhD student William Mitchell publishes in Church History and Religious Culture journal
Recent scholarship has highlighted the religious dimensions of political argument in William III’s England. The article, "The Primitive Church Revived. The Apostolic Age in the Propaganda of William III", adds to this trend through a political analysis of pieces on the Apostolic Age that were written, re-printed, or cited, in the reign of William III. Read it here
Dr Ellis on the space race in the 1960s
LSE Fellow Dr Tom Ellis was interviewed for the BBC History Extra podcast series “Everything You Wanted to Know” on 21 February. He responded to listener questions on the great Cold War rivalry that saw the US and the Soviet Union battle for dominance in space in the 1960s. Listen here
Professor Spohr on the lessons of the end of the Cold War
Catch up with the latest opinion piece from Professor Kristina Spohr in Spanish-language newspaper “El País". The fall of the Berlin Wall and the crackdown on the Tiananmen protests marked an epochal change, but she argues that the new order that emerged now seems exhausted in face of the climate and pandemic crises we are facing. Access the article in El País (14 February). Read for free (in Spanish).
Dr Harder on India's seat at the UN Security Council and Indo-Chinese dicplomacy
LSE Fellow Dr Anton Harder recently recorded a podcast with an Indian series titled “States of Anarchy”. His episode, “A Seat at the High Table”, discusses some of the history around India’s claim to a seat on the United Nations Security Council and Indian diplomacy in the 1950s, particularly toward China. Available on any podcast app. Read more
Dr Richards co-winner of the Prince Consort & Thirlwall Prize and Seeley Medal
The Prize has been awarded by the Faculty of History at Cambridge University since 1904 for the best doctoral dissertations. Dr Jake Subryan Richards submitted his PhD thesis at Cambridge in 2020 on how abolition laws shaped the opportunities and limitations for "liberated Africans" in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world. He joined us as Assistant Professor last September. Read more
Life behind the lines during the Great War
Check out the new article published in The Historical Journal by PhD Alumnus and Guest Teacher Dr Alex Mayhew, "British Expeditionary Force vegetable shows, allotment culture, and life behing the lines during the Great War". As part of a programme encouraging the cultivation of unused land around camps in Le Havre, members of the British Expeditionary Force participated in a vegetable competition, offering a new perspective on the experience of the Great War. Read it here
The Volga River and Russian History
Emeritus Professor Janet Hartley’s new book with Yale University Press, The Volga. A History of Russia's Greatest River is out now. The Volga River has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are now a part of the Russian Federation – and has united and divided the land through which it flows. Professor Hartley explores the history of Russia through the Volga from the seventh century to the present day. Find out more about the book. Read the reviews in Le Grand Continent (31 December 2020, "15 livres à lire en janvier 2021"), The Spectator (16 January), The Geographical (February, "Book of the Month"), The Economist (20 January) and the Financial Times (11 February).
The book launch took place on 9 February and was hosted by the Higher School of Economics (Moscow).
British and India relations
PhD Student and Graduate Teaching Assistant Tom Wilkinson has written an article for “The Spectator” magazine (26 January). He argues that Britain’s departure from the EU presents an exciting opportunity to build on old alliances around the world, and nowhere is this more true than in the UK’s relationship with India. Read it here
Después del Muro by Professor Kristina Spohr
On 21 January, Professor Spohr discussed her latest book Post Wall, Post Square (Yale University Press, 2020) with the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. Recently published in Spanish, the book offers a bold new interpretation of the revolutions of 1989, showing how a new world order was forged – without major conflict. Read the interview here (free for LSE users). Read the book reviews from Spanish-language newspapers, El Pais (29 January), El Manaña (7 February), and Politica Exterior (12 February), which called it "a monumental and brilliant book using unpublished sources".
New edited book by Professor Kristina Spohr
With Dr Daniel S. Hamilton (editor, Wilson Center) and Jason C. Moyer (associate editor, Wilson Center), The Arctic and World Order (Brookings Institution Press) explores the huge political, legal, social, economic, geostrategic and environmental challenges confronting the Arctic regime, and what this means for the future of world order. Catch up with the book launch, which took place on 12 January in Washington DC at the Wilson Center.
Dr Ronald C. Po awarded the Young Scholar Visiting Fellowship
The Fellowship is jointly offered by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and the Chaing Ching-Kuo Foundation in Taiwan. The fellowship will support Dr Po's residence at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Chinese Studies and the Institute of Chinese Studies at CUHK as a Visiting Scholar during the 2021/22 academic year.