Prof. Claire Langhamer Head of Department

Department of History Arts A162 University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9QN United Kingdom

T +44(0) 1273 672163 F +44(0) 1273 623246 c.l.langhamer@sussex.ac.uk www.sussex.ac.uk

19th August 2015 Dear student, Many congratulations on securing a place to study with us in the History Department. You have worked really hard to get here and I know you will contribute to the intellectual quality, cultural richness and social engagement of the department, the school and the university. The department forms a community within the wider community of the university. Since the university was established more than fifty years ago, we have developed very strong traditions of scholarship in fields such as social, cultural, economic and intellectual histories. All of these areas remain sites of intense debate and continuing conversations. All of you should aspire to make your own distinctive contribution to our work and some of you may even overturn it entirely. We are sure many of you would like to prepare yourselves to take part in what should be a very exciting experience. To begin the process we have prepared a short list of readings and web pages. All of the books should be available in public libraries or very cheaply in paperback. Some are available through Google Books. This is not a list of classics or required reading, but rather a body of interesting work that reflects our concerns and the kinds of questions and sources we are interested in. Christopher Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914. Global Connections and Comparisons (2004) Carl Degler, Out of Our Past: The Forces that Shaped Modern America (1959) Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (1998) Carolyn Steedman, Labours Lost: Domestic Service and the Making of Modern England (2009) E. P. Thomson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963) Judith Walkowitz, Nights Out: Life in Cosmopolitan London (2012) We have also included a list of books recently published by Sussex historians so that you can get a flavour of our own research. Carol Dyhouse, Girl Trouble: Panic and Progress in the History of Young Women (2013) Martin Evans, Algeria. France’s Undeclared War (2012) Claire Langhamer, The English in Love. The Intimate Story of an Emotional Revolution (2013) Jacob Norris, Land of Progress. Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948 (2013) Claudia Siebrecht, The Aesthetics of Loss: German Women's Art of the First World War (2013) Clive Webb, Forgotten Dead. Mob Violence against Mexicans in the United States 1848-1928 (2013) Sussex based archival websites include:

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The Mass Observation Archive http://www.massobs.org.uk/index.htm British Living Standards http://www.sussex.ac.uk/britishlivingstandards/ The Newton Project http://www.newtonproject.sussex.ac.uk/prism.php?id=1 Enjoy your reading and web surfing. You might also like to explore our departmental web pages before you arrive. You can find these at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/history/ We very much look forward to meeting you in mid-September. All best wishes,

Professor Claire Langhamer Dr Chris Warne,

Head of History Acting Head of History,

Autumn term 2015