This Month's Magazine
The January edition of History Today casts a cold eye on the Versailles Treaty and its shabby treatment of an undefeated Germany in the years following the First World War. Antony Lentin examines a troubled event whose consequences were terrible and continue to resonate throughout a divided Europe today.
Also in this issue, Nicholas Mee, in an extraordinary piece of historical detective work, suggests the identity of the patron of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the literary masterpieces of the Middle Ages; Peter Ling explains how the media created the image of the black US activist Malcolm X both in life and death; David Torrance re-assesses the roles of Glasgow and Aberdeen in the Scottish Enlightenment; Simon Heffer warns readers of the perils of bias in the writing of history; and Paul Lay pays tribute to the pioneering historian Kevin Sharpe.
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Main Features
The Zoological Society of London was launched in 1826 to promote scientific research into new species. Roger Rideout describes how it amassed its specimens for its private museum and menagerie, which soon became a public attraction.
The Treaty of Versailles, negotiated by the fractious Allies in the wake of the First World War, did not crush Germany, nor did it bring her back into the family of nations. Antony Lentin examines a tortuous process that sowed the seeds of further conflict.
The black activist Malcolm X was not a civil rights leader. Nor was he a victim of the mass media. He was its beneficiary, in life and death, argues Peter Ling.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a masterpiece of Middle English literature, which narrowly escaped destruction in the 18th century. Nicholas Mee examines the poem to discover both its secret benefactor and the location in which its drama unfolds.
The poets Gerard Manley Hopkins and Coventry Patmore both subscribed to a Tory world view, fiercely opposing the reforms of Prime Minister Gladstone. But their correspondence reveals two very different personalities, says Gerald Roberts.
History Matters
With the New Year release of Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse Gervase Phillips explores the true story of the horses and mules that served the British army during the First World War.
Simon Heffer argues that until relatively recently most historians have been biased in their efforts to harness the past to contemporary concerns.
Paul Lay pays tribute to the Renaissance and Early Modern historian who was a pioneer of interdisciplinary scholarship.
Today Jane Austen is regarded as one of the greats of English literature. But it was not always so. Amanda Vickery describes the changing nature of Austen’s reception in the two centuries since her birth.
Today's History
Ian Bradley looks at the life of Vincent Priessnitz, pioneer of hydrotherapy, whose water cures gained advocates throughout 19th-century Europe and beyond and are still popular today.
Would a new Act in Restraint of Appeals such as Henry VIII enacted against Rome in 1533 achieve a similar objective for Eurosceptics today of ‘repatriating powers’ from the EU? asks Stephen Cooper.
Other articles
David Torrance examines a pioneering article, first published in History Today in 1990, which argued that the Scottish Enlightenment was not restricted to Edinburgh but was a genuinely national phenomenon.
The triumph of liberal democracy was supposed to herald an end to history. But it has returned with a vengeance, says Tim Stanley.
A selection of readers' correspondence with the editor, Paul Lay.
The Maid of Orléans was born on January 6th 1412: she has been an incarnation of French national identity and pride for six centuries.
Italian Fascist scouts meet a member of the Hitler Youth in Padua, October 1940: a picture explained by Roger Hudson.
Frederick the Great, the man who made Prussia a leading European power, was born on January 24th, 1712.
The designer of the Colt revolver, the most celebrated killing machine in the history of the Wild West, died on January 10th 1862, aged 47.
Reviews
Michael Bloch reviews Norman Davies' Vanished Kingdoms: an 'enjoyable and idiosyncratic historical excursion'.
David Waller reviews a fascinating chronicle which 'traces the social history of a sport almost devoid of rules'.
Rohan McWilliam reviews Matthew Sweet's 'different history of the Home Front': the Ritzkrieg and the opulent lifestyles that the rich enjoyed in London during the Second World War.
What can historical fiction tell us about the past that factual history can’t? Does it distort the record and confuse the reader? What exactly is historical fiction anyway?
If people are what they eat, Winston Churchill was plain cooking, whisky, champagne and the best Havana cigar smoke; and all that these might be taken to imply.
Roger Moorhouse on a book that provides a powerful antidote to fashionable nostalgia for life in the GDR.
Newsletter
From The Current Issue
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Antony Lentin
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Gervase Phillips
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Tim Stanley
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From The Archive
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What did medieval contemporaries think of military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights? Helen Nicholson investigates. |
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