Can A Rock Band Make History?
A Glasgow rock band, The Tenementals, explore what it means to create radical history in song.
Jul 16, 2025•36 min
History Workshop Podcast
Listen to leading scholars, activists and writers talk about the practice of history and reflect on the social forces that are changing our world.
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Episodes
The 1984 Islington Nursery Strike
Why did 155 nursery workers employed by London's Islington Council go on strike in 1984 - and why has their story been forgotten?
Jun 18, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Uncovering the Socialist Anthropocene
How can the visual arts shed light on the historical relationship between socialism and the natural world?
Jun 17, 2025•34 min
War and the Mind
Is war innate to human psychology?
Apr 16, 2025•1 hr 2 min
Writing History in Sri Lanka Now
How might historians of the 2022 People's Uprising in Sri Lanka explore ongoing struggles for accountability and justice?
Feb 25, 2025•56 min
In Search of Waguih Ghali
Exploring the enigma that was the Egyptian writer Waguih Ghali, author of the classic postcolonial novel Beer in the Snooker Club.
Nov 13, 2024•42 min
The Siege Of Sidney Street
How did a 1911 East End police shootout affect the history of anarchism in London and beyond?
Oct 23, 2024•43 min
Pioneering Transgender History
How did trans history find a foothold in the academy - and what is its future? Susan Stryker discusses with Claire Potter on this episode of the Why Now podcast.
Jul 31, 2024•43 min
An Indian Historian's Ordinary Life
The novelist Amitava Kumar on history, fiction, India, and ordinary lives.
Jun 26, 2024•41 min
In The Shadow Of Diagnosis
How has modern queer life been affected by its encounters with psychiatric power?
Jun 12, 2024•31 min
UK Disability History and Heritage Hub
How can we investigate disability history and heritage?
May 29, 2024•54 min
Before The Light Fades
Natasha Walter on her mother's life of activism and resistance.
Apr 24, 2024•36 min
Now Here
What is the future of common spaces and community gathering spots in the UK? At a time when so many spaces that once were shared are now either derelict or in private hands, when it can be difficult to find somewhere to gather with friends without buying a latte in order to do so, how might the future be different? How might we rethink our relationship with public space, the land, and each other? Those are the questions that audio producer May Robson set out to answer in a new series for BBC Sou...
Apr 10, 2024•27 min
Rosalux History
What possibilities do podcasts offer as vehicles for radical history? Albert Scharenberg of the Rosalux History podcast discusses.
Mar 27, 2024•40 min
Translating the French Revolution
How might we translate the French Revolution in ways that open it up to the 21st century?
Mar 13, 2024•1 hr 14 min
Workshop Of The World
A new collection of Raphael Samuel's essays illuminates 19th century Britain and the politics of "people's history".
Feb 28, 2024•41 min
On Direct Action
What does the accidental death of an anarchist in London in 1894 tell us about forgotten histories of direct action?
Feb 12, 2024•30 min
Archives, Archiving, And Decolonisation
What can two different stories of postcolonial archival practices tell us about memory, history-making, and decolonisation?
Dec 13, 2023•48 min
The Horse Tamer of Grosvenor Square '68
What can a single image of a lone female protestor tell us about the "Battle of Grosvenor Square" in 1968?
Nov 29, 2023•41 min
Dig Where You Stand
What can we learn from a 45-year-old Swedish manifesto that helped inspire the movement for workers' history?
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr
Walking Against the Expulsive Environment
The political climate greeting refugees to the UK is no longer simply hostile - it is expulsive. David Herd explores.
Nov 01, 2023•53 min
No Recourse To Public Funds
What lessons might the past hold for migrants seeking childcare in the UK but having No Recourse to Public Funds?
Oct 18, 2023•25 min
She Who Struggles
Who do you think of when you hear the phrase “revolutionary women”? If you cast your mind back to the movers and shakers of the revolutions that marked the 20th century, what women’s names come to mind? Sorcha Thomson and others discuss their book She Who Struggles: Revolutionary Women Who Shaped the World.
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 12 min
Bad Gays
Histories of gay men, lesbians, queer and trans people often focus on the heroic. But what about the gay characters whose impact on history was far more ambiguous, or complicated, or out-and-out bad? Ben Miller and Huw Lemmey, hosts of the Bad Gays podcast and authors of Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, discuss what those complicated lives can tell us about the dynamics of queer history and the formation of sexual identities.
Aug 09, 2023•52 min
Rethinking Place in British Labour History
What do we mean, in post-Brexit Britain, when we talk about "ordinary working-class places"? Valerie Wright, Ewan Gibbs, and Diarmaid Kelliher explore.
Jul 05, 2023•1 hr 33 min
What Is Public History Now?
In September 2022, a group of public historians from outside and inside the academy met at London’s Birkbeck College in the heart of Bloomsbury to ask ‘What is public history now?’ In this special edition of the History Workshop Podcast, we explore the politics, the perils, and the possibilities of doing history in public.
Jun 14, 2023•51 min
Rethinking Gender in British Labour History
What happens to narratives of British labour history when we incorporate stories of women? Laura Schwartz and George Stevenson explore.
May 31, 2023•58 min
Rethinking Race in British Labour History
To mark International Workers Day, we explore three forgotten moments in British history that spotlight the intertwined histories of labour and race.
May 03, 2023•1 hr 15 min
Spies For Peace
Sixty years after breaking into a government bunker to expose secret state planning for nuclear conflict, Nic Ralph speaks for the first time about an extraordinary piece of direct action that genuinely worked.
Apr 12, 2023•59 min
Intimacy And Economic Life
What does it mean to write "intimate histories" of economic life? How might a focus on "the intimate" transform the way historians perceive and describe the economic past? Six scholars address those questions in this episode of the History Workshop podcast.
Jan 17, 2023•1 hr 12 min
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