Tom Cutterham

Essential questions that I want to see someone try to answer.

I don't normally post about university league tables, but...

I honestly don't know how anyone manages it!

I'll tell you what Bailyn and Wood got right all the way back in the 60s: pithy title, basically no subtitle.

Research Fellow - School of History and Cultures - 105992 - Grade 7 To create and contribute to the creation of knowledge by undertaking a specified range of activities within the Leverhulme Trust funded research project "The Ascent Of Paper Currency In Britain, 1690s...

My Birmingham colleague Hiroki Shin is looking for a one-year, full-time Research Fellow for his project, "The Ascent Of Paper Currency In Britain, 1690s–1920s." Deadline in August! edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Think this is also true (in a less intense way) here in the UK. There was a time when students might have turned out to try and save higher education from government-condoned collapse, but universities have happily helped crush student politics and activism over the last couple of decades.

Shaimaa’s PhD will be funded by @sgsah.bsky.social (supervised by @hannahkateboast.bsky.social Will Tattersdill & me, in partnership with @commapress.bsky.social) - but she is currently trapped in Gaza unless the UK Gov relaxes its requirement for biometric data bsky.app/profile/comm...

Text: A writer could only be this gullible if they consciously avoided any knowledge of Rockstar Games beyond Red Dead Redemption II and avoided any of the copious amounts of criticism of the Housers and their perspective on American history and culture. Rockstar Games and the Housers spent over a decade developing a sneering, misanthropic, bloodthirsty, and misogynistic vision of America through the Grand Theft Auto series. Through the historical games in the GTA series and the Red Dead series, the Housers have shown a legitimate interest in American cinema but not really American history. As Esther Wright, in particular, has shown, the latest Red Dead game adopts the appearance of serious, high drama and the veneer of authenticity to achieve a higher level of cinematic facsimile rather than historical accuracy.

This is quite amazing. @whitakeralmanac.bsky.social highlights how a male scholar came along, completely ignoring the previous (& more sophisticated) work of a female scholar, @enwright.bsky.social) - & has gotten raves from popular press & historians with no knowledge of Game Studies.

I don't know exactly what this is but I already want one (arriving tomorrow afternoon!)

Job Vacancy at Edge Hill University: Lecturer or Senior Lecturer in American History We’re here to create and harness knowledge, to deliver opportunity for everyone.About the RoleAs Lecturer or Senior Lecturer in American History, you will be required to make a significant contributio...

WE ARE HIRING @edgehist.bsky.social!!! For a PERMANENT American historian (broadly defined). Quite a tight turnaround (institutional processes) but no internal candidate/nefarious intent. GORGEOUS campus, lovely team, amazing students. APPLY! #skystorians 🗃️
jobs.edgehill.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

re: Netanyahu at Monticello, I suppose my only thoughts are that as a longtime museum worker I’m feeling for the many many staff who must be blindsided, devastated, furious, and deeply hurt by the institution’s choice to welcome him

Empire of Commerce: The Closing of the Mississippi and the Opening of Atlantic Trade - Reviews In History Tom Cutterham reviews this 'rich introduction to a diverse and fragmented early American world'.

Somehow I didn't notice this one go online back in January, but it's me in the IHR's Review's in History on Susan Gaunt Stearns' Empire of Commerce: a diplomatic, social, and economic history of the Mississippi in the early United States. reviews.history.ac.uk/review/2488/

Advertisement for a protest, organized by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, at 6pm Friday 11th July, King's Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG. It reads: "Protest Rolls Royce Complicity in Genocide. Rolls Royce produces critical parts for F-35 fighter jets Israel uses to drop 2,000lb bombs on Palestinians in Gaza."

My institution's VC today: "I was honoured to attend the annual awards ceremony of the Royal Academy of Engineering as a guest of Rolls-Royce..."

Also today:

Call for Applications: Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop, 2025 History Workshop is advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships in 2025, open to early career historians.

Join us! We are advertising two part-time, paid Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop in 2025-27.

Our fellowships support early career historians to develop expertise in public, radical and digital history & to gain experience of working in an editorial team.
www.historyworkshop....

You know the '80s is where it's really at!

This is … the best local TV political coverage I’ve ever seen

Nope, the song was (in some sense) about the band!

YouTube video by Jeepster Recordings Belle and Sebastian - The Boy With the Arab Strap

youtu.be/9K7W6dztw-4?...

omg love this for you!

Great stuff, Henry.

It's Our America Too The radical legacy of the revolution

I wrote this for the 4th of July. The revolution doesn't belong to MAGA, and neither does America: working people in the revolution offer an example for those of us who believe in equality and freedom

buttondown.com/anotherway/a...

Fantastic. Enquiry sent via your form!

Awesome, thanks Andrew.

Does anyone know anyone who can make maps for history books? I'm belatedly realising this might be useful, and also obviously books with maps are always at least 10% cooler.

This is not my experience! Such a reading seems widespread among scholars of the eighteenth century Anglo-world generally, where Thompson is deployed to authorise the rejection of the very concept of "class" in the period.

Pauline Maier's review of Philip Foner's Labor and the American Revolution, in the William & Mary Quarterly: www.jstor.org/stable/1921849

Look, if a management consultant can't understand and regurgitate your programme of higher education on a single powerpoint slide, it's simply too complex to be of any value.

Pauline Maier, reviewing Philip Foner's Labor and the American Revolution, writes: "In The Making of the English Working Class, E.P. Thompson argued that there was no English "working class" until the 1790s when it emerged against a background of economic hardship and political repression."

Stumbled across this neat summary of how most scholars seem to have read and applied The Making of the English Working Class: as a negative argument about the non-existence of a working class in the earlier eighteenth century.

To live in the UK is to be gaslighted daily. We are told that the biggest threat to free speech is from trans rights activists on the day that Palestine Action will be banned and offences for up to 14 years imprisonment can be incurred for expressing support for them.

Wonderful to celebrate eighteenth-century studies at @unibirmingham.bsky.social last week, with colleagues and friends of BECC both new and old. Thanks to everyone who took part!