The blog accompanying the research and writing of my life of aviation pioneer and industrialist Sir Richard Fairey ended with publication of the book five years ago. As then I remain Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Southampton. So why resurrect the blog under a new name – shameless self-promotion? Well yes, to a degree.
Firstly, I’m acutely conscious of how difficult it is to get books reviewed. Last December saw Bloomsbury Academic publish the paperback edition of Mountbatten Apprentice War Lord and the hardback edition of Mountbatten, Cold War and Empire, 1945-79, but minimal promotion and the absence of review copies means nobody knows of their existence. Even when I took the initiative there was no response (thank you TLS and History Today). So, outside of social media – with which my involvement is minimal – this blog can serve to publicise my books. Come July the small independent publisher Takeha (who in 2020 published Slouching Towards Big Pink Essays on Bob Dylan and The Band, Woody Guthrie, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt) publishes Flying Solo Richard Thompson and the Making of Henry The Human Fly – more on this closer the time. Next time I’ll say more about the podcast that accompanies Slouching Towards Big Pink.
Secondly, I’m equally aware of how much harder it is these days to get material published, even online (the New Statesman website was a welcome home for material that didn’t match the print magazine’s present priorities, but that no longer seems the case, so see the next blog posting for my response to the NS‘s 110th anniversary issue). I’ll use this blog to publish articles which previously I wouldn’t have had too much trouble getting into print.
Naturally, I’ll also write specifically for the blog. As the title signals, the focus will be on the history of the British archipelago across the past 150 years or so, and nothing is off the agenda, from contemporary politics to contemporary sport (re the latter, both codes of rugby, football and cricket – appropriately for a diehard Coventry fan I’m gearing up for research into high spending clubs in the second tier of English rugby union – the Championship – and that of their French equivalents; for a paper at a conference being organised by De Montfort’s International Centre of Sport History and Culture to coincide with the Rugby World Cup).
No doubt this blog will be used for multiple other purposes, but for the moment the above will suffice as a statement of intent. Enjoy!
