Eager to get published, but want to start small? This is your chance: the UGH Journal is excited to launch our latest opportunity for undergraduate students to showcase their historical skills: micro historia.
These microhistories, inspired by other scholarly journals and public history blogs, showcase in less than 1,500 words a historical interpretation of a single primary source — a document, object, or collection — to demonstrate how historical research deepens our understanding of the past and present. Think of these as historical writing in action.
The Myth of Spanish Exceptionalism
Alex Fischer
Hernán Cortés is often cast as a lone genius who toppled an empire—but this myth of Spanish exceptionalism obscures a far more complex and violent history. Centering on The Conquest of Tenochtitlan (unknown artist, 17th century), this piece asks how art, narrative, and omission have erased Indigenous resistance and recast conquest as destiny.
Canada, Britain, and the Wartime Wheat Debate
Ashlin Daly
Britain — Canada’s best customer or just its most frustrating one? As Britain bargained hard for cheap wheat, Canadian officials realized sentiment would not pay the bills.
The Second World War made clear that imperial ties were no match for hard economic self-interest.
The Power of Collective Liberation
Olivia Roth
The Women’s Liberation Movement promised equality—but for whom? Groups like the Combahee River Collective challenged a liberation politics that too often replicated the hierarchies it claimed to fight and forged new paths—ones rooted in intersectionality, solidarity, and a broader vision of justice.
