Harry Roberts

Email: h.roberts4@student.liverpool.ac.uk

Twitter: @nukesof_hazzard

Previous education

• BA (History), 1st Class Honours;
• MA (Cultural History) Distinction: University of Liverpool, 2013- 2017.

Thesis title

’British Nuclear Culture in the Rural Periphery: 1945-1991’

Supervisors

Dr Jon Hogg, Dr Chris Pearson, Dr Mark Riley

Research summary

Drawing upon the recent body of scholarship upon British Nuclear Culture and the urban Cold War context, my project seeks to explore the social, cultural, and emotional impact of the Cold War within rural Britain, particularly focusing on the experiences of those citizens who lived alongside the varied ‘nuclear sites’ (RAF bases, weapons silos, power plants etc) that littered the British landscape during the Cold War era.

My study will capture a series of oral ‘life-histories’ from citizens who lived alongside the British nuclear apparatus, tracing the socio-cultural impact of competing attitudes towards nuclear technologies. By examining the interplay between the nuclear state and its citizenry at the local level, I hope to document the British public’s complex relationship with nuclear technologies, presenting the experiences of those individuals who built, lived with, revered, and feared these technologies as a key, as yet under-researched part of British Cold War history.

My thesis will draw upon insights from historical geography, the history of emotions, oral history, and nuclear studies to display the varied ways nuclear technologies conditioned everyday life during the nuclear age; hopefully offering a more rounded understanding of British nuclear culture.

Research interests

Nuclear Culture; Oral history; Identity;  History of Emotions; Space and Place; Use of VR in History; Modernity; Power; Secrecy