Australia's War in the Mediterranean

Ukraine isn’t invited to its own peace talks. History is full of such examples – and the results are devastating

Ukraine isn’t invited to its own peace talks. History is full of such examples – and the results are devastating

Feb 20, 2025

Reading time: 7 minutes
Ukraine has not been invited to a key meeting between American and Russian officials in Saudi Arabia this week to decide what peace in the country might look like.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine will “never accept” any decisions in talks without its participation to end Russia’s three-year war in the country.
A decision to negotiate the sovereignty of Ukrainians without them – as well as US President Donald Trump’s blatantly extortionate attempt to claim half of Ukraine’s rare mineral wealth as the price for ongoing US support – reveals a lot about how Trump sees Ukraine and Europe.

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Free of the Trench: How British & Imperial Forces Overcame the Deadlock of the Western Front

Free of the Trench: How British & Imperial Forces Overcame the Deadlock of the Western Front

Feb 20, 2025

Reading time: 12 minutes
The First World War came to an end just over 100 years ago, a mere moment’s time in human history. But as close as we are to it, a century is more than enough to surround that conflict with myth and misconception.

The image of the war on the Western Front, as brought to us through decades of outdated scholarship and popular fiction, is simple: two vast armies, each equipped with the latest murderous fruits of the industrial age, found they couldn’t decisively defeat one another in the field and so settled into a long, bloody, dirty, and consumptive war in which thousands of lives were thrown away every day, often for minuscule gains which would bring neither side meaningfully closer to victory.
The real story is more complicated. By 1916, it was plain to see that tactics like those championed by Haig, designed to draw out the enemy for a momentous set-piece battle, weren’t working, and even those neck-deep in the fight didn’t need the benefit of hindsight to recognise that.

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Scientists at work: Public archaeologists dig before the construction crews do

Scientists at work: Public archaeologists dig before the construction crews do

Feb 17, 2025

Reading time: 8 minutes
I’m the director of the Public Archaeology Facility, a research center specializing in cultural resource management. Our mission is to identify, evaluate and preserve significant sites, train students to be professional archaeologists and share our results with the public. We can work on up to 100 projects a year. Since our inception in 1972, the center has discovered more than 3,500 archaeological sites.

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South Korea’s March to Democracy: from the Gwangju Uprising to the June Democratic Struggle

South Korea’s March to Democracy: from the Gwangju Uprising to the June Democratic Struggle

Feb 13, 2025

Reading time: 7 minutes
When did South Korea become a democracy? A quick Google Search may give you many different answers.
You may be wondering, what’s the real answer?                                                        As with most things, the truth is complex. More recent events with the attempted, and failed, political coup attempt from then-sitting President Yoon Suk-yeol in 2024 shows just how ingrained South Korea’s recent history of political turbulence is.
This is the history of South Korea’s democratic struggle.

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Glastonbury: archaeology is revealing new truths about the origins of British Christianity

Glastonbury: archaeology is revealing new truths about the origins of British Christianity

Feb 10, 2025

Reading time: 5 minutes
Many Christians believe that Glastonbury is the site of the earliest church in Britain, allegedly founded in the first or second century by Joseph of Arimathea. According to the Gospels, Joseph was the man who donated his own tomb for the body of Christ following the crucifixion. By the 14th century, it was popularly believed that Glastonbury Abbey had been founded by the biblical figure of Joseph. The legend emerged that Joseph had travelled to Britain with the Grail, the vessel used to collect Christ’s blood. For 800 years, Glastonbury has been associated with the romance of King Arthur, the Holy Grail and Joseph of Arimathea. Later stories connected Glastonbury directly to the life of Christ.

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Military History

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Intelligence agency’s 1981 assessment of climate-change threat was remarkably accurate

Intelligence agency’s 1981 assessment of climate-change threat was remarkably accurate

Feb 3, 2025

Reading time: 5 minutes Australia’s national intelligence agency has released a report that ‘examines the implications of the increasing accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a result of the burning of fossil fuels, with special reference to Australia as a producer and exporter of coal’. It flags that ‘major economic and social adjustments’ are going to be required as a result.

Political and Economic History

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Social and Cultural History

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“Delusive Quackery”: How a Brazen Medical Scam led to Real Scientific Advancements

“Delusive Quackery”: How a Brazen Medical Scam led to Real Scientific Advancements

Feb 6, 2025

Reading time: 6 minutes As the eighteenth century came to a close, Dr. Elisha Perkins appeared poised for a truly successful career. He had served his young nation as a surgeon in the Revolutionary War, and even established a private hospital in his own home. He was respected by his colleagues, and stood as a member of the Connecticut Medical Society, which his father had founded. Still more exciting: in the 1790s, Perkins believed himself to have made an astonishing discovery. During tooth extractions, he noted that patients experienced a brief reduction in pain when their inflamed gums were touched with a metal instrument.

History Audiobooks

A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World – Audiobook

A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World – Audiobook

On his first journey Cook mapped the east coast of Australia, on his second the British Admiralty sent him into the vast Southern Ocean. Equipped with one of the first accurate chronometers, Cook pushed his small vessel not merely into the Roaring Forties or the Furious Fifties but become the first explorer to penetrate the Antarctic Circle, reaching an incredible Latitude 71 degrees South, just failing to discover Antarctica.

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History Guild would like to acknowledge the Boonwurrung people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we are based, and pay our respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging.