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Before we kick off this week's History Extra podcast, we want to tell you a little bit about our sponsor,

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Hello and welcome to our monthly series History Behind the Headlines. I'm Matt Alton.

In each episode, an expert panel

will be exploring the historical news stories that have caught their eye and the history that

will help you make sense of what's going on in the world. Each month, I'll be joined by our two

regular panelists. I'm Hannah Skoda. I'm fellow and tutor in medieval history at St John's College in

Oxford. I'm Ron Amitter. I'm'm S.T. Lee Chair in U.S. Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School,

and I'm a specialist on modern Chinese history.

Hannah and Rana, thank you both so much for being here as usual. We're going to be doing something

a bit different today, which is to devote the episode to some of the challenges facing history

in Britain in 2025. There have been a number of headlines in recent months

about potential closures to university history departments, and the funding challenges

faced by such institutions. Back in February, I spoke to Lucy Noakes, who is the president of

...