Investigations of a Dog

I’m writing a book! I’ve signed a contract with Ashgate Publishing for a monograph provisionally titled Horses, People and Parliament in the English Civil War: Negotiating Property and Constructing Allegiance. If everything goes to plan it should be out some time in 2012. Although I’ll be using some material from my PhD research this isn’t “the book of the thesis” as it’s going to have a completely different argument. I’m using the supply of horses to armies to show how military resources were contingent and had to be negotiated with civilians; how identities could be constructed using external signs or imposed on people who didn’t want them; and how these things feed into each other. Building on my empirical research into military administration and logistics, I want to show how the practicalities of fighting wars relate to politics, religion, gender and animal-human boundaries.

This probably won’t affect my blogging much – my posts won’t be any less frequent than they already are. Obviously I’m not going to post any of the text of the book on the web, but as I go I’ll be putting some research material on Flickr and Your Archives. I’m currently going through indemnity cases in SP 24 at the PRO (UK National Archives), and I need yet more material from SP 28 (a bottomless pit of civil war financial records).

• The latest Military History Carnival is up at Wig-Wags.
• The Institute of Historical Research is carrying out a survey to find out what people think about the possibility of podcasting/vidcasting research seminars. Go and tell them what you think. Their digital seminars project also has its own blog.
• Ross Mahoney linked to a UK National Archives project which involves post blogging the Second World War on Twitter using cabinet papers: @ukwarcabinet
• Meanwhile, the National Archives wiki Your Archives is starting a project to  create a glossary of historical terms. See the current list of wanted terms, sign up and add what you know.