Editor: Dino Franco
Felluga
This site, an extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net, provides users with a
free, expansive, searchable, reliable, peer-reviewed, copy-edited, easy-to-use
overview of the period 1775-1925. Unlike dry chronologies that simply list
dates with minimal information about the many noteworthy events of a given
year, BRANCH offers a
compilation of a myriad of short articles on not only high politics and
military history but also “low” or quotidian histories (architecture design,
commercial history, marginal figures of note, and so on). Since no one scholar
could hope to provide a complete overview of an entire century of British
society, I have compiled material from a host of scholars working on all facets
of the British nineteenth century. Authors come from History, Art History, and
English departments across the world. The site differs from Wikipedia in so far
as all articles have undergone peer review, copy-editing, and proofing. Each
article also seeks to interpret the events being discussed. Indeed, many events
are discussed by more than one scholar. Thanks to its site structure, BRANCH offers users an
innovative approach to history itself, suggesting that any given bit of
historical information can branch outward in often surprising directions.
Rather than provide a linear timeline of history from the perspective of the
victors, I wish to provide a history that comes closer to what Walter Benjamin
famously termed jetztzeitor “the
time of the now,” an impacted history that explores the messy uncertainties and
possibilities of any given historical moment.
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