I have entered the third week of the universe I inhabit during the summer break: a post-college world of the summer holiday, where I have time to read, to research, and to visit historical sites of the significant and insignificant. So far I’ve been “productive” in finishing reading Schama’s excellent Citizens (a chronicle of the French Revolution) and in uploading my short history on Ralph Wilford (Henry VII’s Forgotten Pretender) in the form of an eBook on Amazon. Furthermore, I’ve managed to even create a new blog-site logo!

As for the posts of the past month, I started July in finishing off the second part of the post ‘Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics’. This outlined how stats are utilised – and sometimes abused – in the study of history. Part 1 outlined the positive manner in which stats can outline clear patterns, whereas Part 2 focussed on the more negative side of how stats could be used to promote a narrative, no matter how dubious it may be.

July also saw the continuation of a couple of regular features: the English Monarchs FA Cup rumbled on, with the second part of Round 1 outlining the fixtures of Richard I v Edward III, and of Elizabeth I v Cnut the Great. Whilst the War World Cup had its 12th entry, featuring Henry VII’s trouble with Scotland in 1496-97.

Other posts focussed on Richard Nixon and a summary of his actions in Vietnam (having assessed Nixon’s level of success with domestic issues back in June 2018), and I also uploaded a small article on Saltash during its time as a rotten parliamentary borough. I am hoping to continue further on Cornwall’s engagement with the 1832 Reform Act, linking back to my old dissertation on this period of history.

Earlier in July the History team at University Centre South Devon completed the 4th annual William of Orange History Walk. It is great to see this growing as a tradition, year after year. Previous posts on past walks can be seen here, here, and here.

And finally, the last post of the month outlined my current eBook – Ralph Wilford: Henry VII’s Forgotten Pretender. This is based on research completed earlier in the year (as noted in a previous post: ‘Who the Heck was Ralph Wilford’), and having seen this smaller article balloon I decided on an Amazon eBook release to let the final write-up find a home. As a shameless final plug, the eBook can be read/purchased here.