Author: Chris Hilton

Newly available in the Archives and Manuscripts collection: the papers of Sir Harold Himsworth (1905-1993) The personal papers of Sir Harold Himsworth reflect the great diversity of interests that the scientist had during his lifetime. Included within the collection are… Continue reading

Today, officially, marks the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere: the point from which days are longer than nights, and the long winter is finally behind us. Of course, this is an artificial date: spring is not something… Continue reading

Eighteen months ago, the collapse of the Lehman Brothers merchant bank touched off ripples around the world, a disturbance of the financial system whose consequences are still not worked out. In the aftermath of the bank’s collapse (and the run… Continue reading

This week is National Pie Week in Great Britain, celebrating the long history of pies and pasties in British cookery. Although the haggis and the Roast Beef of Old England occur more in song and story, food wrapped in pastry… Continue reading

‘At a time when money worries are front-page news,’ say the publishers of Delia Smith’s Frugal Food, ‘Britain’s most trusted cook is once again on hand with a wide range of tasty recipes that are cheap and easy to prepare.’… Continue reading

  Rudolf Hess’s state of mind from the date of his landing in Scotland in 1941, throughout the years of his imprisonment in England, and during his trial in Nuremberg, has been the subject of speculation by historians, fiction writers… Continue reading

The papers of Henri Tajfel (1919-1982), the Bristol University Professor of Social Psychology and eminent social psychologist, following the completion of the cataloguing process, have today become accessible at the Wellcome Library. An extensive obituary for Tajfel appeared in the… Continue reading

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little… Continue reading

To the majority of this blog’s readers, the heading to this post will be opaque. If history had worked out differently, however, the phrase could have been as well known as “Happy Birthday”; for this is what it means. Many… Continue reading

We are what we eat. This is most obviously true in the physical sense, but also culturally: our diet expresses our society and encodes a wide variety of cultural influences. Not only does our food say who we are now… Continue reading