The Open University

‘Thrilling’ BBC documentary airs about the history of the Union

2 October 2023

The turbulent history of how Great Britain evolved is dissected in an intriguing Open University/BBC co-production – Union with historian David Olusoga – which reaches the small screen tonight (Monday 2 October). The four-part series airs on BBC Two at 9pm and charts the history of the Union from the 1600s – a century defined […]

Locked up – but given the gift of a new future

19 September 2023

Open University history professor Rosalind Crone features in a new film commissioned by the Ministry of Justice showing how prisoners are being given new skills by training them for roles in the catering industry. “Served” is a 40-minute film available on YouTube that charts the progress of a team of prisoners from HM Prison Lincoln […]

Meet the historian on the Lady Killers team

9 May 2023

While the second series of the BBC podcast “Lady Killers” continues to entertain audiences with its feminist take on 19th and early 20th Century murderesses, we spoke to the academic consultant on the series – billed as the programme’s ‘resident historian’ Professor Rosalind Crone from The Open University. Murder most horrid sells. And when you […]

The real Queen Charlotte

3 May 2023

Fans of the racy Netflix period drama series ‘Bridgerton’ are patiently waiting to see the spin-off prequel series ‘Queen Charlotte: a Bridgerton Story’ – so we asked an expert to tell us about the young queen. We spoke to Dr Natalee Garrett, a history lecturer at The Open University, who has researched the 18th Century […]

How the war in Ukraine is being fought

9 February 2023

Military historian and Cold War expert Dr David Grummitt is a Staff Tutor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the OU. Here he shares his insight into how the war in Ukraine is being fought and its comparisons to the Cold War – the ‘conflict’ that never took place on the battlefield. […]

Ukraine: why supply of US and German tanks echoes cold war

26 January 2023

Dr David Grummitt is an Open University staff tutor in history and a military historian. Here he talks about Germany’s latest decision to allow its Leopard 2 tanks to be exported to Ukraine and what it could mean. The decision that Germany and the US will allow the export of M1 Abrams and Leopard 2 […]

Black History Month: the OU’s ‘Race and Ethnicity Hub’ shows past and present ideas of race and racism

6 October 2022

The Open University’s OpenLearn is drawing people’s attention to Black History Month (BHM) through its ‘race and ethnicity hub’ to help people understand historic and contemporary ideas of race and racism. It was developed after the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 and draws together a collection of existing and new free resources including articles, […]

Our State funerals and how they’ve changed

21 September 2022

It’s estimated that 4 billion people around the world watched Queen Elizabeth’s funeral with many royal commentators and, no doubt, the public marvelling at the planning that went into the pageantry of this historic event. It was with much precision and practise, decades of practise we are told, that the Queen’s coffin arrived at Westminster […]

Moving the Maasai: Tanzania is repeating Kenya’s colonial past

22 July 2022

Lotte Hughes, Honorary Associate at The Open University writes for The Conversation about the Massai community being forcibly moved from their homes in Nairobi. Images of distressed members of the Maasai community being forcibly moved from their homes, beaten and harassed by police and the army in northern Tanzania in June set social media alight […]

Clive Emsley, on receipt of honorary doctorate from Edge Hill University, 2016

OU pays tribute to pioneering historian of crime and policing

13 October 2020

Staff and colleagues around The Open University (OU) have been paying tribute to Emeritus Professor Clive Emsley, a founding member of the History Department at The Open University and one of the world’s foremost exponents of criminal justice history, who has died this month aged 76. Among his accolades Clive provided the first scholarly history […]

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Category: History