About The Website
The original version of this site came into existence in 2000, as part of a set of pages I created as a first-year PhD student. It expanded rapidly (if haphazardly), along with visitor numbers, until I decided in 2002 that it ought to have a permanent home of its own, and thus Early Modern Resources at www.earlymodernweb.org.uk came about. Visitor numbers continue to grow, and it’s being linked to by a growing range of sites.
The site was conceived as a gateway site for any one interested in studying the early modern period (c.1500-1800), offering the widest possible range of (free-to-use) links arranged in a user-friendly manner (the basic principles are set out on the home page). That’s still its primary purpose, though I add original writing and a few primary source materials as and when I can (on the principle of quality over quantity). It’s updated as regularly as a busy schedule will allow. If you find a broken link, please be patient; better still, let me know. If your own site, or one that you really like, is not included, send me the URL. If you feel that the site could be improved in some way, do write with suggestions. As with all these things, it’s an ongoing project. By the way, I do not rigorously evaluate the sites listed and make no guarantees about their accuracy or value (although I avoid complete rubbish) - that’s for you to judge. Oh, and nor is the site ever going to be comprehensive (apart from anything else, I don’t have the language skills to evaluate non-English-language sites).
As the site has grown, I cannot keep it updated as frequently as I would like, although I hope to be more efficient now that I have converted the site to a database-generated format. I add new links when I get the chance, and I aim to check the entire site for dead links a few times a year. I do not automatically remove apparently dead links on the first failure (although I add a note that the resource was found to be unavailable), because websites can disappear and return (eg, teaching resources for specific courses). They can also move: if you click on a link in this site and get a ‘404 Not Found’ or similar result, it’s always worth searching Google to see if that has happened. Finally, if the site seems to have entirely disappeared, you may be able to find an archived version at The Wayback Machine.
A note to web site owners: my review of sites tends to be limited (too many websites, not enough time…), and if you think my descriptions or categorisations of your site are way off the mark, do get in touch to explain why (politely, please…). The categories are only ever meant for guidance and are certainly not written in stone. (But I do try not to assign more than about three categories to any one entry.)
If you’re interested in setting up a flexible, database-generated website like this one, for example as a resources site in your own field, I’ll be happy to try to help you out with advice.
You can contact me using the form below.
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About Sharon Howard
I was born in the late 1960s in eastern England. I left school at 17 and did a succession of dreary jobs, got married and divorced, and returned to full time education in my 20s. Most of my higher education took place in Wales, at the wonderful seaside town of Aberystwyth. A foundation year at Coleg Harlech had already whetted my appetite for Welsh history, and it was at Aberystwyth that I was introduced to the mysteries and challenges of the early modern period by an inspirational teacher. The serious study of crime and the law followed the discovery, whilst doing my BA dissertation, of a rich set of Welsh legal records - and these became the core of my PhD research. I passed my PhD viva in June 2003, and was subsequently awarded a 3-year British Academy Post-doctoral Fellowship, which I held from autumn 2003 to summer 2006. My current post is at the University of Sheffield, as project manager for two major digital primary source projects: the Proceedings of the Central Criminal Court 1834-1913 and Plebeian Lives and the Making of Modern London 1690-1800.
Higher education history:
1995-8: BA History, University of Wales Aberystwyth
1998-9: MA Women’s and Gender History, University of York
1999-2003: PhD, University of Wales Aberystwyth (’Crime, community and authority in early modern Wales‘ [PDF])
Publications:
(Some of these can be accessed at my publications archive.)
‘Riotous community: crowds, politics and society in Wales, c.1700-1840’, Welsh History Review, 20 (2001)
‘Imagining the pain and peril of seventeenth-century childbirth: danger and deliverance in the making of an early modern world’, Social History of Medicine, 16 (2003)
‘Investigating responses to theft in early modern Wales: communities, thieves and the courts’, Continuity and Change, 19 (2005)
‘Servants in early modern Wales: co-operation, conflict and survival’, Llafur: the Journal of Welsh People’s History, 9 (2005)
Review of Garthine Walker, Crime, gender and social order in early modern England, Gender & History, 18:1 (April 2006).
Law and Disorder in Early Modern Wales: Crime and Authority in the Denbighshire Courts, c.1660-1730 (Cardiff, 2008).
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Online ‘first drafts’, works in progress, essays, etc
(These are not traditional peer-reviewed publications, but they are pretty good examples of my use of the Web for writing about my research and interests, and about doing history.)
Arson in eighteenth-century London (a two-part essay exploring the topic in the Old Bailey Proceedings Online)
Thinking about duels and violent gentlemen (thoughts about research in progress on ‘gentlemen behaving badly’)
A seventeenth-century detective (a short essay about an aspect of my research, for a non-specialist audience)
Postgrad Help (a series of articles giving practical advice to potential and current postgrad students, especially PhD students: planning a project, getting funding, surviving your viva, etc)
Women’s lives in the British Civil Wars (commentary and extracts from primary sources written by women on both sides of the conflict about their experiences, hopes and fears)
Early Modernity on Film (no real excuse, I just like watching films…)
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Page last updated November 2006
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