History & Policy papers are written by expert historians, based on peer-reviewed research. They offer historical insights into current policy issues ranging from Afghanistan and Iraq, climate change and internet surveillance to family dynamics, alcohol consumption and health reforms. For historians interested in submitting a paper, please see the editorial guidelines.
Currently, 249 papers are freely searchable by theme, author or keyword, with new papers published regularly. Where possible, we publish papers to coincide with relevant policy developments. If you are a policy maker, civil society practitioner or journalist and would like to contact one of our historians, please contact historyandpolicy@london.ac.uk.
You can download H&P policy papers directly from the Apple iBooks store to your iPhone, iPad or Mac. We also have an Amazon Kindle version to download to your PC for transfer to your Kindle via USB cable. Please consult your Kindle manual for further details.
It has become an accepted view that popular attitudes to tax became more negative in the 1970s and have remained so ever since. However, this is not supported by a recent study of the relevant evidence. There has been little overall change since the late 1940s. The public have consistently prioritised fairness in taxation and have also been concerned to maintain public services.
Public sympathy put pressure on politicians of the 1920s and 1930s to make exceptional provision for veteran disability welfare – could the same be true of social policy more widely in the post-Covid world, asks Michael Robinson.
The nation's health turned a corner in the 1870s thanks to public health measures campaigned for by Nightingale, and implemented by well-financed Local Authorities. Hugh Small argues that it is this, rather than her hospital practice, that should inform our response to the pandemic.
Policy makers can derive important lessons from this oral history of mutual aid, formal and informal, gathered at Newcastle West End Foodbank by Alison Atkinson-Phillips and colleagues.
Victorian infrastructure development is lionised today, but this interdisciplinary case study of early-twentieth century Leeds shows that the problems faced by modern projects are nothing new
Shane Ewen shows how great improvements in public fire safety are at risk in an age where successive governments are on a mission to cut "red tape" - the result is Grenfell. Will we see a return to the reactive "tombstone legislation" of the 1950s to 1970s?
Katie Barclay reviews the operation of the nineteenth century workhouse and the twentieth century asylum to show that once emotional and financial investment in welfare systems fails, abuse and cruelty become systemically enabled.
Lorenzo Castellani traces the roots of the idea of the citizen as consumer of public services - an idea embraced by successive governments of different political stripes since John Major's Citizen's Charter in the early 1990s.
Prof. Robert Anderson looks at the history of university tuition fees and asks whether the restoration of free higher education in England is politically possible, or indeed, desireable.
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H&P is based at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, University of London.
We are the only project in the UK providing access to an international network of more than 500 historians with a broad range of expertise. H&P offers a range of resources for historians, policy makers and journalists.