A quick update on what the Warnings from the Archive team have been listening to/reading/watching this week. The pieces that have caught our interest and develop the themes and topics explored by the project.
Firstly, ‘Scandal and Secrecy in the History of the Nineteenth-Century British Empire’, a recently published article by Callie Wilkinson that can be found in The Historical Journal. We think a lot about perceptions of military history and national identity, so this exploration of imperial scandals and their concealment raises interesting questions about the history of government transparency.
Next, Inside Politics have released an episode of their podcast on Mother and Baby Homes: “The overall picture is not as it should be.” While inquiries are often presented as a watertight mechanism for ensuring justice and the truth, this discussion of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation reveals the limits of that assumption. The methodologies used by inquiries ofttimes require scrutiny as well.
Finally, if you hadn’t already caught it, Slow Burn, the critically acclaimed podcast from Slate, has been serialising the events that led up to the US decision to invade Iraq. It’s an in-depth exploration of the paranoia and reactionary politics that built up to conflict. You can find the first episode here.