TheNACBS

Who was smuggling in 18th century Britain? My refreshed database for prosecutions for smuggling in England and Wales c. 1721-1732 is live with over 4,000 entries. From naval officers to farmers, smuggling was big business. #twitterstorians #earlymod #history
www.davidchansmith.net/smugglingdat...

Spoiler: I think the answer is yes!

#MedievalSky #skystorians #IrishHistory #DigitalHumanities

Fancy a holiday? My latest in @jbritishstudies.bsky.social, featuring two delightful books on Britons abroad.

Got a new article out today in @jbritishstudies.bsky.social. It's about the ways in which the music press constructed race in late 20c Britain. Open access so do share it around!

Thanks to @leverhulme.ac.uk and @uniofreading.bsky.social for supporting the research.

doi.org/10.1017/jbr....

📢New article in JBS!

📗"I Am Not Anti Black Music But...": Popular Music, the NME, and Race in Late Twentieth-Century Britain by Benjamin Bland @benjamin-bland.bsky.social

Open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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Hello I would like to state for the record that I LOVE THE NACBS AND I LOVE THEIR BROADSIDES BLOG!!!!!

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Contesting Colonial Technologies: Historical Models for Resistance "Do the strategies employed by subjects of empire offer productive models of resistance and subversion?"

“Do the strategies employed by subjects of empire offer productive models of resistance and subversion?”

In the penultimate piece in our AI series, @megsmith.bsky.social offers vignettes from early modern Ireland that could suggest productive models of resistance.

www.nacbs.org/post/contest...

Join us tomorrow to hear more about Matthew Mason's newest book on slavery and political conflict in the Atlantic world!

Deus in Machina: AI and Divine Rhetoric “The urgent message from history concerning the process of forcing the metaphorical deus into his machina is that social domination readily takes up the language of philosophy or religion when seeking...

I have a new essay out today with the North American Conference on British Studies about the oligarchical urge to say that AI is going to become God

www.nacbs.org/post/deus-in...

Deus in Machina: AI and Divine Rhetoric “The urgent message from history concerning the process of forcing the metaphorical deus into his machina is that social domination readily takes up the language of philosophy or religion when seeking...

"The urgent message from history concerning the process of forcing the metaphorical deus into his machina is that social domination readily takes up the language of philosophy or religion when seeking to reset social norms."

Check out the next piece by @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social in our series on AI

📢Now available in JBS!

📗What Liberalism Requires: The Very Victorian Marriage of JS Mill and Harriet Hardy Taylor by Michelle Tusan

This article was presented as the Presidential Address at NACBS 2025 in Montreal.

Open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Deadline tomorrow! Send in your expressions of interest.

Seeking the High Ground with Matthew Mason | NACBS Join NACBS to celebrate the publication of Matthew Mason’s recent book Seeking the High Ground: Slavery and Political Conflict in the British Atlantic World. Eliga Gould will join Matthew in discussio...

📢Book event!

Join us online next Thursday to hear more about Matthew Mason’s newest book, Seeking the High Ground: Slavery and Political Conflict in the British Atlantic World

📅Thus March 5
⏰12pm EST/ 9am PST / 5pm GMT
Free and open to the public

RSVP: www.nacbs.org/event-detail...

📢The information pages for NACBS prizes, grants, and fellowships are now updated for the 2026 application season.

Find more information at the link below!
www.nacbs.org/news/prize%2...

Data is the New Oil: Outside-in intelligence and the social and environmental consequences of AI "After all, if the AI boom has taught us anything it is this: Data is the new oil, and the most pressing questions are, who owns it, who has access to it, and what should it be used for?"

“After all, if the AI boom has taught us anything it is this: Data is the new oil, and the most pressing questions are, who owns it, who has access to it, and what should it be used for?”

Check out the next piece by @ktl10.bsky.social in our blog series on AI.

www.nacbs.org/post/data-is...

CALL FOR PAPERS: Crossing Intellectual Boundaries in English Legal History (Oxford: Christ Church, 10-11 SEP 2026) [DEADLINE 26 MAR 2026] (image: Sir Francis Bason; Source: Wikimedia Commons ) A workshop in English Legal History will take place in Christ Church, Oxford on 10 ...

CALL FOR PAPERS: Crossing Intellectual Boundaries in English Legal History (Oxford: Christ Church, 10-11 SEP 2026) [DEADLINE 26 MAR 2026]

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esclh.blogspot.com/2026/02/call...

Data is the New Oil: Outside-in intelligence and the social and environmental consequences of AI "After all, if the AI boom has taught us anything it is this: Data is the new oil, and the most pressing questions are, who owns it, who has access to it, and what should it be used for?"

“After all, if the AI boom has taught us anything it is this: Data is the new oil, and the most pressing questions are, who owns it, who has access to it, and what should it be used for?”

Check out the next piece by @ktl10.bsky.social in our blog series on AI.

www.nacbs.org/post/data-is...

📢New article in JBS!

📗"Rethinking the Legitimacy of British Botanizing in Late Qing China (1840–1912)" by Di Lu

Open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Norman L. Jones (1951-2026): A Remembrance "As a final word, it’s hard to think of anyone who wore his brilliance with such modesty, grace, and generosity, and who put so many others before himself."

Norman L. Jones, an accomplished historian of Tudor history, has passed away. In this remembrance, Robert Tittler and @susancogan.bsky.social reflect on his scholarship, life, and legacy.

www.nacbs.org/post/norman-...

Happening at noon today! You can RSVP to receive the zoom link.

Fueling Empire with Karl Ittmann | NACBS Join NACBS to celebrate the publication of Karl Ittmann’s recent book Fueling Empire: The British Imperial Oil Complex, 1886-1945. Bill Storey will join Karl in discussion.

Join us Thursday to hear more about how the global histories of oil and empire are inextricably interlinked.

📕Fueling Empire with Karl Ittmann
⏰February 19 at noon ET

Free and open to the public. RSVP: www.nacbs.org/event-detail...

We invite 20-minute papers for our 2026 Summer Conference 'The Church and Race' #CfP #history

Keynote speakers:

▪️Prof Miri Rubin, EHS President @qmul.bsky.social
▪️Prof Herman Bennett, @cuny.edu
▪️The Right Reverend Rowan Williams

Deadline: 15 April

ecclesiasticalhistorysociety.com/26summer/

Reading, Assessment, and AI in English Studies "The current anxiety around AI in English studies, however, cannot be understood in isolation from the longer institutional and colonial histories of the discipline, which parallel the institutional a...

“The current anxiety around AI in English studies, however, cannot be understood in isolation from the longer institutional and colonial histories of the discipline, which parallel the institutional and colonial histories of AI itself.”

Read the next piece in our AI series by Anushmita Mohanty.

A week full of One British Archive! Check out these two new additions to the series!

📗“Burning Archive”: The Barbados Department of Archives by Tara Inniss

Open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Also new in the One British Archive Series!

📗Stocked Stacks in the Great Plains: British and Irish Collections at the University of Kansas’s Kenneth Spencer Research Library by Elspeth Healey

OA here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

📢Another new piece out in the One British Archive Series!

📗"A Monumental Task: The Archival Potential of Graveyards" by James Johnson

Open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Important reading. Looking forward to the rest of the series

📢New in JBS!

📗“Imperial Politics, the Dominions, and the Irish Question, 1907–21” by John C. Mitcham

Open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...