1999

In an inimitable review of the last 160 years of party politics, Richard Kelley argues that the Conservative party is like a marriage that has gone wrong.

Jonathan Riley Smith reports as Malta celebrates the anniversary of its Sovereign Military Order

David Rooney describes the extraordinary exploits of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, the German soldier who kept the Allies tied down in Africa throughout the Great War.

Stefan K Pavlowitch

John Tosh

David VitalImages of the Holocaust: The Myth of the ‘Shoah Business’Tim Cole

May 19th, 1849

Michael Richards

Abortion was legalised in Britain on 14th July, 1967. There is a widespread belief that to be a feminist means to advocate abortion. Angela Kennedy and Mary Krane...

Controversy is the lifeblood of history; here Graham Darby takes issue with a previous article.

Michael Sturma finds parallels in contemporary accounts of abductions by space aliens with European narratives of captivity by Indians and Aboriginals in early...

John Ramsden

Joanna Bourke

Sharon Marcus

Patricia Cleveland-Peck looks at fresh projects and older initiatives to record the experiences and opinions of ‘ordinary people’.

Daniel Snowman meets the co-founder of the University of Sussex and doyen of Victorian history.

Kenneth Baker recalls the early experiences and the school-teacher that instilled him with a love of history.

Christopher Harvie examines Scottish cultural identity since the Act of Union, and argues that writers and intellectuals have been the real keepers of the national...

The editor of the Evening Standard reflects on the romantic roots of his interest in history.

Ben Gray analyses the career and estimates the importance of the trade union leader who organised the Great Dockers' Strike of 1889.

Hanna Diamond discovers the journal of an alleged woman collaborator in Toulouse that throws light on the fate of prisoners in a vengeful post-war France.

Penny Young explores Bethlehem’s plans to make the small town of Judaea central to the millennium celebrations.

January 24th, 1800

Tony Blair becomes the third British PM to receive this annual prize for promoting European unity.

The MP for Blackpool South and ex-editor of History Today describes how his early interest in history bewildered his family but proved ineradicable.

Robert Pearce examines a work on the British Empire from the new Cambridge Perspectives in History series.

Richard Wilkinson has been reading early-modern books from the Longman In Depth series.

Mark Robson has been using new textbook on Mussolini's Italy with his students.

Jenny Jeynes is impressed with a new book on one of Henry VIII's wives.

Peter Clements looks at two new books on 19th and 20th century Italy.

Ivan Roots examines the latest research on Philip II of Spain.

Robert Pearce has been enjoying a new series of short biographies.  

Richard Mackenney reviews a book in the new Access to History: Themes series.

Andrew Matthews examines three new books on key themes in modern history.  

Matthew Christmas has consulted his students on three modern history volumes from a new series.

Vyvyen Brendon considers the latest books on the First World War.

Carl Peter Watts commends a new book on the Spanish Civil War.  

Geoff Layton reviews two books on Germany after the First World War.  

Charles G. Gross

William D. Rubinstein takes issue with the argument that Britain could have done more to prevent the Holocaust.

British Heritage sites nominated for UNESCO.

Denis Judd questions the role of Empire in defining Britain’s identity in relation to Europe and the rest of the world.

Hugh Purcell argues that the increasing popularity and sophistication of television and radio history makes broadcasting the boom medium for learning about the...

If you want to know the time, argues Robert Poole, you should ask an historian.

Jonathan N TubbThe IsraelitesB S J IsserlinLegend: The Genesis of CivilisationDavid Rohl

David Price

Nick Henshall welcomes a breakthrough in historical publishing.  

Eric Evans not only updates us on the latest research on Chartism but recommends how to avoid examination pitfalls.

Durham primary teacher David Field describes how he is trying to set his children on a path that may make them the historians of the twenty-first century.

Nigel Spivey considers the roots of Christian art and iconography, discovering its roots in the cruelty of the Roman arena and the shame of crucifixion.

David CannadineHistory in Our TimeDavid Cannadine

Andy Croll tells how the stringent welfare policies introduced in response to the South Wales coal strike of 1898 had a long-term impact on the radicalisation of the...

Ilana R Bet-El

Suzanne Rickard meets one of the bogeymen of the 19th century and discovers he was not the cold-hearted monster that was often portrayed.

Patricia Cleveland-Peck, examines the role of cookbooks and social history.

Robert Garland investigates the ancient origins of the calendar and time-keeping systems of the Western world.

Clarissa Campbell Orr explains the recent revival in the history of courts, from those of the Byzantine emperors to that of Hitler.

Neil Gregor

Mark Mazower

Obituary of David Englander from the Open University.

Christian V died in Copenhagen on August 25th, 1699, following a riding accident.

Account of the life of the socialite Marguerite Blessington.

Richard Cavendish explains the background to the life and death of Henry IV's father, on February 3rd, 1399

The Hungarian Diet issued its manifesto for independence on April 14th, 1849. It proved to be a mistake, however.

Richard Cavendish recreates the scene of the famous Victorian Tory leader's accession, on February 22nd 1849.

Peter Connolly explains how he became the most admired historical illustrator-author on Greece and Rome.

Jonathan Hughes describes how the new classical-inspired education given to young members of the aristocracy in the fifteenth century laid the foundations for future...

Jennifer Loach (whose work has been edited by George Bernard and Penry Williams) goes back to the original sources to show that, despite his image as a pious...

Simon Adams reviews two bookson Elizabeth I, by Alison Weir and Julia M. Walker.

Peter Aughton

Martin Petchey outlines a new government plan to merge heritage organisations.

Daniel Snowman talks to a man who has devoted his long and distinguished career to unravelling the threads of American freedom.

Peter Clements explains that addressing the question directly is the key to securing good grades.

Asa Briggs looks at the continuities and contrasts between 1851, 1951 and 2000.

Thirty years later, Douglas Johnson reconsiders the circumstances in which de Gaulle relinquished his position as President of France and his mythic legacy in...

John Garnett assesses the pros and cons of ‘mutual deterrence’, the nuclear defence strategy that both escalated and controlled tensions between the superpowers...

Jill Liddington

Simon Craig discusses the long-term feud between the Scottish football teams Celtic and Rangers and a rare episode ninety years ago, when fans from both sides united...

Paul Dukes welcomes the current boom in historical fiction - but says novelists need to ground their stories in a soil of solid fact.

February 4th, 1899

Evidence uncovered that sheds light on the first European settlement

January 14th, 1900

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of a successful night at the Academy Awards for Laurence Olivier, on March 24th, 1949.

Robert Dallek

The sorry history of ethnic conflict in the Balkans, concluding that forgeign intervention has needlessly fanned the flames of nationalism.

Jack Goody

John Sullivan charts the fortunes of the radical Basque nationalist movement in its attempts to gain independence from Spain.

The rival leaders in Spain’s Civil War were as different as the causes they embodied. Paul Preston compares their contrasting characters.

Miri Rubin

Greening urban landscapes is nothing new, says Joyce Ellis, the Georgians were Greens too.

Ghana's slaving past, long regarded as too sensitive to even discuss, is now becoming a lively issue. A group of Ghanaians, led by lawyers and tribal chiefs, have...

Stuart Clark reviews a work by Jean-Claude Schmitt

Lisa Pine explores the impact of the BDM Nazi girls’ movement and discusses both the opportunities and constraints it presented to young German women.

Graham Hancock and Santha Faiia

Ford's first automobile company didn't last long, but it was to have a lasting effect on his thinking.

History titles dominated the first-ever Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction.

The winners of the prizes in the Longman History-Today awards 1999 are announced.

Edited by Brian Fay, Philip Pomper and Richard T. Vann

Results of the Millennium Survey, which asked readers to state the most important aspects of the last century and millennium.

Edgar Feuchtwanger examines the controversial issue of change and continuity in the foreign policies of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany.

Spain is preparing for thousands of pilgrims along one of the greatest pilgrimage routes of history.

With all the talk of the new millennium, we seem to have lost sight of something rather more important: the dawning of a new century.

Peter Catterall dives into the history of the alphabet soup in which electoral reform has become enmired.

Dutch sovereignty was transferred to the United States of Indonesia on November 2nd, 1949.

Peter Furtado reports on the anxieties voiced at a recent Historical Association conference.

Akhbar Ahmed argues that the rise of Muslim fundamentalists means that Islamic leaders face a choice between moderation or militancy.

David Rock tells the story of the rise and fall of a late Victorian businessman and politician and the insights his career throws on nineteenth century Argentina.

Obituary of the late Art and Production Editor of History Today

Roger Lockyer takes a fresh look at the much-maligned James VI of Scotland, who became the first Stuart king of England.

In assessing Britain's performance during 13 years of Conservative rule, Dilwyn Porter picks out the two themes which have dominated British history since the...

Alan MacColl explores the appropriation of the Arthurian legend for political ends by English monarchs from the twelfth century onwards.

Adam Hochschild

David Matless

Loyd Grossman explains how a gifted teacher from Maine inspired his love of the past, and encouraged him to plunge his hands into a mixing bowl of Plaster of Paris....

October 31st, 1899

Penelope Corfield explores the interdependent relationship between crown and capital from the 17th century onwards that the monarchy ignored at its peril.

New documents have come to light which help to explain why John Harrison refused to compete for the Longitude prize even though his sea-clock appeared to work well....

John Gardiner searches for the historical moment when our Victorian forebears went missing from the popular consciousness.

Marika Sherwood looks at the history of racist attacks in Britain, following the criticism of police handling of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993...

Robert Poole revisits the ‘Calendar Riots’ of 1752 and suggests they are a figment of historians’ imagination.

Keith Surridge

Delia DavinMaoShaun Breslin

Mao Zedong was elected Chairman of the Central People's Government on September 30th, 1949.

Peter Padfield

Leah Leneman describes the traps for the unwary caused by the marriage laws of 18th-century Scotland.

Valery Rees looks at the Florentine scholar Marsilio Ficino and finds a man whose work still speaks to us today.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of September 22nd, 1499.

Malcolm Brown describes how his work in the Imperial War Museum shows the experience of Great War soldiers transcends and challenges standard attitudes towards the...

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of a crown appointment for the great poet, of March 16th, 1649

Penelope GoukIngenious PusuitsLisa Jardine

On July 25th, 1943, King Victor Emmanuel III said to Mussolini: 'My dear Duce, my soldiers don't want to fight anymore. At this moment you are the most hated man...

Daniel Snowman reviews a new title by Peter Gay.

Ronald Kowalski and Dilwyn Porter place a famous series of football matches into the context of sports history, politics and international relations.

Napoleon Bonaparte took power in France on November 9th/10th 1799.

New theory explores the frontier earthworks on the Welsh border.

1999 is clearly a year for commemorating Cromwell. But why?

In his Longman-History Today awards lecture, David Cannadine considers the art, craft and psychology of the historical book review.

John Newsinger

Rhoads Murphey helps us to distinguish between the legendary and the real in the legacy of a great empire-builder.

News of an exhibition of wall-painting that will travel around the country.

Richard Ollard

Lindsey Hughes reviews the controversial career of perhaps the most significant figure in Russian history.

Debra J. BirchCathedral Shrines of Medieval EnglandBen Nilson

Taylor Branch

Cressida Trew, winner of this year's Julia Wood Essay Prize, shows that Polish historians under political duress and with the need to forge a positive national...

David Braund re-examines what we know about Britain at the time of the Roman invasions.

Brian Golding looks at life under the Norman Yoke during the consolidating reign of Henry I.

David Welch argues that propaganda has had an essential, and not always dishonourable, role in conduct of affairs in the twentieth century.

ed. by Alex Gibson and Derek Simpson

January 31st, 1950

Tony Aldous on the changes afoot for a historic area of south London in Millennium Year and beyond.

Bruce Kent reflects on the achievements and shortcomings of the peace movement and anti-nuclear weapons campaigns of the 1980s, from a post-Cold War perspective.

Publication of one of the defining novels of the 20th century.

Rebuilding the Frauenkirche church which was detroyed in the 1945 Dresden bombings.

Andrew Pettegree re-reads Geoffrey Elton’s classic text and considers how the subject has developed in nearly four decades since it was written.

John Morrill

Nigel Saul explores the deposition of Richard II, arguing that the king’s malice and misrule forced Henry Bolingbroke to destroy him.

Peter Kramer tells how the popularity of the sci-fi epic proved timely for Ronald Reagan and the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Ron Clough shows how the arrival of the railway in Japan helped break down suspicion of foreigners and ushered in the country’s modern industrial expertise.

Adrian Mourby looks at the long line of history operas inspired by the works of the German romantic poet Friedrich Schiller and finds Hollywood is still inspired by...

  Simon Coates explores the symbolic meanings attached to hair in the early medieval West, and how it served to denote differences in age, sex, ethnicity and status...

Richard Cavendish explains how the proposal to change the name of Siam to Thailand was eventually accepted on May 11th, 1949.

ed. Ian Gentles, John Morrill and Blair WordenWomen All on Fire . The Women of the English Civil WarAlison Plowden.Refiguring Revolutions. Aesthetics and Politics...

Pablo E Pérez-MallainaSailors: English Merchant Seamen, 1650-1775Peter Earle

Philip Williamson

Jim Kelsey uncovers a unique Anglo-Saxon collection, enabled by a supportive local council.

Paula Bartley takes issue with those historians who depict the suffragettes of the Pankhursts' Women's Social and Political Union as elitists concerned only with...

Greg Stevenson tells the story of the 1930s decorative artist Clarice Cliff who brought modern art to suburbia with her Cubist-influenced art deco ceramics for...

Christine Counsell robustly defends the teaching of history in secondary schools, arguing that press attacks on ‘trendy’ teaching are ill-informed and out-of-date....

Essays are no longer the be-all and end-all of history assessment; but the ability to write a good essay is still vital. Robert Pearce gives some advice.

Judith A Green

John Haywood et al.The Atlas of ArchaeologyMick Aston and Tim TaylorAtlas of the Classical World, 500 BC - AD 600 John Haywood et al.

August 16th, 1949

Thomas L Thompson

Oliver Cromwell was born on April 25th, 1599. Richard Cavendish charts his early life until his election as a member of parliament for Huntingdon in 1628.

David SmurthwaiteThe National Army Museum Book of The Boer WarLord CarverThe Boer WarTabitha JacksonThe South African War 1899-1902William NassonThe Anglo-Boer War...

David Nash argues that opposition to the Second Boer War began the tradition of peace politics that has flourished through the twentieth century.

Was Britain's reputation as the champion of Italian independence really warranted? Giuseppe Garibaldi was undoubtedly popular with Britons, but Peter Clements is...

David Verey and Alan BrooksThe Buildings of England. Norfolk 2: North-West and South.Nikolaus Pevsner and Bill Wilson

Edited by Michael Loewe & Edward L. Shaughnessy

David Vincent

Alexander II died on July 8th, 1249, aged fifty. His reign was often later remembered in Scotland as a golden age.

Charles Baudelaire described Edgar Allan Poe's death, on October 7th, 1849, as 'almost a suicide, a suicide prepared for a long time'.

The first president of the United States died on December 14th, 1799.

Jan Herman Brinks examines the Dutch myth of resistance and finds collaboration with the Nazis went right to the top.

Michael A. Mullett reveals that Loyola underwent several forms of education himself before setting the Jesuits on their educational mission.

Marie Peters

Derrick Baxby looks at the history of the smallpox vaccination, how it was opposed by many, and how the disease was finally eradicated.

R L Storey

The warship Implacable was scuttled on December 2nd, 1949.

Peter Burke

November 23rd 1499

Antony Fletcher reviews a new title which looks at wider aspects of the English family in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

July 15th, 1099

Sugar magnate and art lover Henry Tate died on December 5th, 1899, aged 80.

April 4th, 1949

Amanda Vickery

Gordon Marsden reviews a book by Geoffrey Parker

Nigel Saul reviews a work by C. M. Woolgar

October 16th, 1949

Tony Aldous introduces Sir Neil Cossons, the new chairman of English Heritage.

Adrian Seville describes the humble beginnings of the earliest lottery, tracing its development from 16th-century Venice across the Channel to Britain.

Cherry Barnett recalls the history of Europe’s last colonial toehold in China, as the Portuguese colony of Macao returns to rule by Beijing.

Alfio Bernabei discovers evidence of a plot to kill the Italian dictator in the early 1930s.

Richard Cavendish describes the maiden flight of the world's first jet-propelled airliner, on July 27th 1949.

Robert Hole examines the often misunderstood careers of Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, whose power in Renaissance Florence was wielded with...

Adrian Johns

Wolfgang Sofsky

Robert Tombs explains why the Paris Commune of 1871, which ended with the most ferocious outbreak of civil violence in 19th century Europe, is still a subject of...

Scott McMillin and Sally-Beth MacLeanFools and Jesters at the English CourtJohn Southworth

Michael Hutchings argues that for too long Protestant historians have concentrated on the negative aspects of the era of ‘Bloody Mary' and that, in sharp contrast...

Glen Jeansonne describes the anti--war, anti-liberal and antisemitic Mothers’ Movement that attracted a mass following in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s.

Michael Bush explores the development of sex guides in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and their effect on British society.

Dr Nicholas Tate tells how an old-fashioned museum sparked a childhood, but lasting, interest in the past.

Stewart Binns introduces the new series which uses colour film footage found of the conflict.

Charles Richmond and Paul Smith (eds)Bonar LawR J Q Adams

It is often said that the 'ifs of history' are fascinating but fruitless. Here, Rob Stradling shows that a counter-factual consideration of what might have...

The Royal Observatory launches a new all-encompassing exhibition on the history of time.

Martin Biddle

Keith Randell, the founder of the Acress to History series, demonstrates that there is virtually no occasion in life when the study of History is irrelevant.

Jonathan Haslam

Patrick Moore reviews a book by Allan Chapman

Gloria Cigman looks at the Bible as an illustrated story book in medieval France.

Daniel Snowman meets a polymath who has rejected the label ‘historian’ to become a guru with interests ranging from the passions of the French to the New Age of...

David Culbert on a cinematic blend of propaganda and entertainment that proved remarkably successful with US audiences during the Second World War.

Revolutions and changes of dynasty seem to have happened with the regularity of clockwork on the island of Java. M.C. Ricklefs investigates.

May 4th, 1799

Rose Tremain reveals how her fascination with the seventeenth century was the key that unlocked the world of her acclaimed historical novels.

In reviewing the career of one of the key figures in modern Russian history, Michael Lynch rejects the notion that Trotsky would have been a more humane leader...

Historical documentary film-maker Martin Smith tells how his early exposure to Government lies led to jail and a lifelong commitment to historic truth.

Sean McGlynn puts the present-day European Union into historical perspective.

Mark Mazower looks back to the much maligned Versailles Treaty and finds we still live in the continent it created.

A survey of reactions and prospects for history in British Universities after the Dearing Report.

Toby Osborne looks back over the career of Van Dyck, on the 400th anniversary of his death.

Simon Fowler describes the huge upsurge in charity work in Britain in the First World War, concluding that it was an important way of uniting the nation behind the...

Micheal Hicks

Martin McCauley reviews Stalin's foreign policy, paying special attention to his covert involvement in the Korean war. He shows that, despite short-term successes...

Basil DavidsonThe Peoples of the Middle Niger. The Island of GoldRoderick McIntoshThe Scramble for Art in Central AfricaEnid Schildkrout and Curtis A. Keim (eds)

Dave Wright and Nicholas Hill explain the failure of Britain’s post-war attempts to join the space race.

Clare Griffiths reflects on the last time a Labour government faced angry farmers fighting for their livelihood.

Christabel Gurney describes the origins of the British movement to oppose apartheid, set up exactly forty years ago.

Donal Lowry shows how the Boers could count on worldwide support in their struggle with Britain with some sympathisers backing them on the battlefield.

Frances Stonor Saunders

Stewart MacDonald asks a key question of the wars which dominated the history of Europe in the First half of the Sixteenth Century.

Owen Davies argues that a widespread belief in witchcraft persisted through 19th-century Britain, despite the scepticism engendered by the Enlightenment.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of March 5th, 1849