Work

Presented to the Cambridge Teacher Seminar as part of a series of invited lectures on 'Why History Matters', Westcott House, University of Cambridge, 7 July 2016.Read more...

in Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus 32, 2016 (special issue on Sport und Nationalsozialismus, ed. Frank Becker, Ralf Schäfer), pp. 173-96.

Right from their very inception, sport was always a crucial part of life at the Napolas, the most prominent type of Nazi elite-school. From the gruelling physical aspects of the entrance examination, to the wealth of extracurricular opportunities provided for learning exotic or elite types of sport such as riding, fencing, sailing and skiing, pupils’ time was dedicated as much to physical training and exercise as to academic pursuits.Read more...

Presented at the inaugural conference of the Children's History Society, 'Horrible Histories? Children's Lives in Historical Contexts', King's College London, 16 June 2016.Read more...

An essay on Hitler's foreign policy, commissioned by Hodder Education, has now appeared in the publisher's new Edexcel-approved A-level textbook, entitled History+ for Edexcel A Level: Nationalism, dictatorship and democracy in twentieth-century Europe.

The textbook, edited by Peter Clements, Robin Bunce, Sarah Ward, Mark Gosling, and Andrew Flint, is intended to encourage students to develop high-level skills in historical studies by providing a stimulating mixture of expert narrative and extended reading, including bespoke essays from leading academics.Read more...

Presented at an international conference entitled 'Life of Testimony / Testimony of Lives: A Life-Writing Conference', Queen Mary, University of London, 6 May 2016.Read more...

Presented at a conference entitled 'Places of Amnesia', CRASSH, University of Cambridge, 6 April 2016.Read more...

Presented at a workshop on 'Renegotiating History in Light of the Greek Crisis', Taylor Institution, University of Oxford, 16 March 2016.Read more...

in Europa. Ideologie, Machtausbau, Beharrung (Regionen des östlichen Europas im 20. Jahrhundert Bd. 3), ed. Burkhard Olschowsky, Ingo Loose, Berlin (De Gruyter) 2016, pp. 128-51.

From their very inception in 1933, the Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten (Napolas) were conceived by their founders not only as the principal training schools for the future elite of the Third Reich, but as being of crucial benefit to the Nazi regime’s mission to Germanise the Eastern territories.Read more...

in Making Sacrifices: Visions of Sacrifice in European and American Cultures
, ed. Nicholas Brooks, Gregor Thuswaldner, Vienna (New Academic Press) 2016, pp. 66-86.

Since antiquity, the heroic fight to the last of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans against the overwhelming might of the Persian Empire has often been considered the ultimate expression of sacrificial patriotism. This article considers the juxtaposition of supposedly ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ notions of patriotic self-sacrifice in German military propaganda during the 20th century.Read more...

Classical Receptions Journal 8 (1), 2016 (special issue on The Legacy of Greek Political Thought, edited by Barbara Goff and Miriam Leonard), pp. 71-89.

During the Third Reich, radical reinterpretations of Classical texts were always on the agenda. The Reich Education Ministry decreed that only those ancient texts which were deemed of value for the Nazi regime’s new ‘national-political’ education should be taught in schools. This sometimes led to the pre-eminence of texts which had previously been considered less worthy – the writings of Xenophon being a case in point.Read more...