2002

Update on History Today's commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Second World War

David Johnson contrasts new works on the Anti-Corn Law League and the Salvation Army

William Clennell celebrates the 400th anniversary of Oxford's Bodleian Library.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of June 12th, 1952

Larry Gragg recounts the reasons for the visit of the Quaker George Fox to Barbados in 1671, and the significance of his presence there.

Andrew Roberts reintroduces us to Churchill’s long-delayed epic work, which was written with the assistance of a former editor of History Today.

Robert Knecht describes his quest to unravel a mystery originating in the French defeat in the Battle of the Nations.

Brian Ward reviews a new survey on the birth and development of jazz.

Angela V. John looks at the uncomfortably long and close links between slavery and the cocoa trade.

Peter Coates reviews a new study of the 19th century US environmentalist John Wesley Powell.

Tim Grady explores life for the teachers and students in a Bavarian university in the 1920s and 1930s.

Introducing The 19th Century Short Title Catalogue, a recently completed project by Avero Publications.

Taylor Downing on the effects of the Great War on Middle Eastern history.

Roland Quinault discusses Gladstone’s view of the Second Afghan War both in opposition and during his premiership.

David Ellwood argues that the attempts of British politicians to copy an American ‘role model’ are likely to fail.

David Johnson reconsiders the nature of the peace treaty between Britain and France and the tarnished reputation of prime minister Addington.

Barbara Yorke looks at two new complementary books on feuding in Anglo-Saxon England.

Retha Warnicke unravels the evidence on the rise and fall of Henry VIII's second wife.

Glenn Richardson explores the talents and fortune of the 16th-century French courtier who served five kings.

Neil Faulkner sees the destruction of Jerusalem and fall of Masada in the 1st century as the result of a millenarian movement that sought to escape the injustices of...

Diarmaid MacCulloch traces the complicated route by which a modest Dutch academic with impeccable Calvinist credentials became a patron saint for anti-Calvinists both...

David Hopkins looks at the 19th-century drive to improve the quality of British design and manufacture, and it impact on the Ironbridge district.

Arthur of Brittany was captured on August 1st, 1202.

On the 60th anniversary of the fall of Singapore, arguably the nadir of Anglo-Australian relations, Richard Wilkinson explores the strange relationship between the...

Caroline Bressey addresses a new work on Asian history in Britain.

Tilli Tansey looks at two very different studies on the treatment of cancer in the western world throughout history.

Penny Young on an eventful year for the town of Bethlehem.

February 4th, 1902

One of the most admired and reviled film makers in the history of cinema was born on August 22nd, 1902.

February 26th, 1802

Jeremy Black, one of the most prolific historians of our time, explains the energy behind his perpetual-motion pen.

Pope Boniface VIII issued the papal bull Unam Sanctam, the most famous papal document of the Middle Ages, on November 18th, 1302.

Richard Wilkinson looks at two books on the reign of Charles I.

F.G. Stapleton commends a new study.

Richard Wilkinson praises a new biography of the 'Sun King'.

Stephen R. Cross assesses the balance of probabilities on Hitler's sexual orientation.

D. W. Ellwood reviews two new studies on Cold War intelligence.

A hundred years later, Michael Bentley looks back upon the arrival and impact of the Cambridge Modern History.

Richard Cavendish charts the founding of Cape Town, on April 7th, 1652.

Jacqui Goddard on the latest findings at the important Roman site on the Danube.

Simon Young reveals the limitations of oral legends as historical sources.

Ruth Ive describes how, as a young woman, her job was to interrupt the wartime conversations between Churchill and Roosevelt.

December 31st, 1502

David L. Smith provides an overview of parliamentary history during the 'century of revolutions'.

John Claydon analyses the increasingly rich profusion of writings on the nature of the Bolshevik Revolution and of subsequent Soviet rule.

Daniel Snowman meets the historian of life and living in medieval Britain.

Life in the fast lane - but was it the girl who paid the price? Elisabeth Perry looks at the campaign to clean up the dance palaces of America's cities at the turn...

Taylor Downing looks at the fascination of coal mining for artists.

Conrad Russell looks at the perks and pitfalls of public office-holding in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Graham Goodlad considers the reasons for the disintegration of the early nineteenth-century Tory Party, which had dominated British politics for more than four...

Richard Cavendish describes the coronation of Queen Anne on April 23rd, 1702.

During the Commonwealth years England's navy scored a series of notable victories against the Dutch and Spanish, but the heroes of the navy were army men, not...

Russell Chamberlin assesses claims for the return of cultural treasures.

April 2nd, 1502

The French writer died aged sixty-two in curious circumstances on September 29th, 1902.

Louis Braille died on January 6th, 1852, aged 43.

May 6th, 1952

Andrew Robinson looks at some linguistic puzzles still facing historians.

June Purvis explores the career of Emmeline Pankhurst.

Gavin Menzies explains how a life as a submarine commander gave rise to the revolutionary notion that Europeans were not the first to sail round the globe.

To open our series examining the impact of changes in American society and culture over the past hundred years, Paula Petrik examines the explosion of adolescent...

David Keys looks at the latest archaeological projects taking place in Sheffield and Liverpool.

Simon Sebag Montefiore reviews a new biography of Alexander Griboyedeov.

Victor Ambrus sketches a colourful picture of his route to the Time Team.

Jonathan Hughes looks at the significance, in alchemical terms, of this reign, and what the King himself made of alchemical prophecy.

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of a royal marriage, on May 18th, 1152.

Catherine Roddam looks back at the first recordings of Italian tenor Enrico Caruso.

Robert Pearce examines the career of the man who was successively trade union leader, Minister of Labour and Foreign Secretary.

Panikos Panayi explores the conditions endured by the people of Osnabrück between 1929 and 1949.

Peter Monteath recalls what happened when two explorers, whose nations were battling for supremacy, met on the other side of the world.

Duncan Anderson reflects on the Falklands War twenty years on.

Anthony Fletcher looks at three new contributions to the field of early modern history.

David Nicholls demonstrates that history, rather than being ‘irrelevant’, is a passport to success in the world of work.

The great majority of women's lives were changed by the American Revolution: they were increasingly drawn into the political debate – as household producers and...

Karen Jones examines the significance of the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park.

Britain's first atomic bomb was detonated on October 3rd, 1952.

Mark Weisenmiller explains how, forty years ago, the ‘Sunshine State’ played a pivotal role in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Tony Aldous surveys a new exhibition on architect Frank Matcham and his work at the Richmond Theatre.

Philip Ziegler tells how a chance invitation to a Loire château set him en route to becoming a historical biographer.

Richard Cavendish recreates the events of March 10th, 1952.

Steven Parissien considers the reputation of one of the most controversial of British monarchs: the king who lost the American colonies, spent much of his life in...

Robert Pearce considers a new biography on George Lansbury, Labour party leader 1931-35.

John Horne looks at what lay behind allegations of brutality on both sides in the opening months of the Great War.

Richard Wilkinson explains what went wrong in Anglo-German relations before the First World War.

As Gibraltar conducts a referendum on its future, Martin Murphy shows the degree to which its status was determined by rivalries between the 18th-century Great Powers...

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto traces the history of globalization in a new volume edited by A.G.Hopkins.

The article that follows comes from True to Both My Selves, Katrin Fitzherbert's prize-winning history of her Anglo-German family. Spanning a century and two world...

Jonathan Wright looks at the career of the statesman who might have steered Germany safely through the Weimar era.

Peter Furtado introduces a special History Today reader evening on the historical dimensions of the British monarchy.

Nicholas Vincent reviews the career of the king whose long reign was overshadowed by the rivalries of his nobles, and who is primarily remembered for his piety and...

January 6th, 1153

Hugh Brogan looks at the BBC’s great debate on the greatest Britons.

Peter Furtado looks at recent history books that have gathered praise and awards

Neil Bell rounds up the latest from the world of re-enactment and living history.

Robert Pearce examines the latest trends in university history.

History Today asked a number of regular contributors to nominate the history book they considered was the best they had read in 1984.

The View from Waterstone’s

Andrew Reekes speaks out in protest at the new A2/AS dispensation.

Jeremy Black compares two volumes which focus on historical thought and writing during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The editor, Robert Pearce, has kept the best reference books for himself.

Medieval ideas about population and the family; working-class reading; reconstruction drawings of medieval sites; aerial photographs of Iron Age remains; Egyptian...

Peter Furtado, editor of History Today, presents the results of the latest grading of history research in UK university departments

David Welch looks at the dramatisation of Führerprinzip in the Nazi cinema, and how history films were used to propagate themes of anti-parliamentarianism...

David Cesarani reflects on the past, present and future of education about genocide and bigotry.

Stephen Brumwell discusses attitudes towards Veterans in mid-Georgian Britain, and the provisions made for them.

On August 11th, 1952, the Jordanian parliament declared that King Talal was suffering from schizophrenia and was unfit to rule and that Hussein was now King of...

Anne Summers looks at the status of one of the few professions open to women.

Peter Furtado highlights the recent achievement of historian Anthony Grafton.

Neil Gregor examines two new books on the aftermath of the Second War World for the remaining Nazi leaders.

John Stuart Mill saw the enfranchisement of women as 'the most important of all political movements' on the road to the equality of the sexes.

Jenny Wormald reviews the career of the man who was King of Scotland for fifty-seven years and King of England for twenty-two, and whose great dream was to create...

Paul Dukes looks back at the life and career of Professor John Erickson.

The walled and moated town of Kazan was stormed by Ivan the Terrible's army on October 2nd, 1552.

S.A. Smith reflects on a new title by Martin Amis which tells the story of Stalinism.

Judith Knelman uses correspondence columns to illuminate changing views on marriage in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Daniel Snowman meets the historian of Britons and Captives.

As the Museum of London launches its new Prehistory Gallery, its recently appointed Director, Jack Lohman, gives us his perspective on the challenges of bringing the...

George Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, became Prime Minister on December 19th, 1852.

Mark Rathbone considers why Lord Palmerston was the dominant political leader in Britain from 1855 to 1865.

Alvin Jackson examines a fine portrayal of Tudor and Stuart Ireland.

Manningham Mills, a symbol of the last century's industrial power, is now to become part of Bradford's renaissance as an exhibition at the city's Cartwright Hall in...

Michael Lynch introduces the controversial career of a gargantuan figure in Chinese and modern world history.

John Rogister delves into the latest offering from Antonia Fraser.

Graham Noble illustrates Luther's anti-Jewish views and distinguishes them from those of the Nazis.

Ian Graham celebrates the efforts of the archaeologist and photographer in opening up for study the Mayan civilisation of central America.

Peter Furtado and Michael Leamann remember the late Michael Camille.

Mark Weisenmiller shows how the fate of Al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners in Cuba is linked to a US Supreme Court decision of sixty years ago.

Jeannette Lucraft recovers the identity and reputation of the remarkable Katherine Swynford.

Richard Sims presents two titles which examine the dramatic changes undergone by Japan in the last century and a half.

John Lucas extols the pioneers who helped develop the parachute, two centuries ago.

Julian Spalding argues that museums should re-evaluate their purpose and practices.

Janet Vitmayer previews the new Music Gallery at the Horniman which is due to open this winter.

Peter Martland examines an account of British popular music and dance in the interwar years.

Daniel Snowman meets the historian of ‘Martin Guerre’.

Christopher Duggan recalls the contribution of a forgotten Italian statesman - Francesco Crispi.

Deborah Mulhearn assesses the debates surrounding the clearance of 400 pre-1919 terraced house in Nelson, Lancashire.

Susan-Mary Grant looks at Florence Nightingale’s influence on medical care in the Crimea and the US Civil War.

John Klier reviews Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s recent venture into the history of his native country.

Mark Rathbone examines the varied reputation of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

Ivan Roots probes two new surveys of Cromwell and his government.

Sarah Tyacke, Keeper of Public Records and Chief Executive of the Public Record Office, makes a personal record of her own abiding interest in history, maps and...

In 1935 Allen Lane established Penguin Books, a series of sixpenny paperbacks. It seemed a risky venture: print-runs had to be huge and cheap paper was used. Today...

Pamela Pilbeam reviews a new study of the French capital between 1814 and 1852.

Keith Robbins reviews a new book discussing what it means to be British in the 20th century.

Richard Smith pays tribute to the late Peter Laslett.

Daniel Snowman meets the historian of British culture from William Morris, via Bloomsbury, to the Beatles.

Robert Lewis looks at the historical evidence contained within the daguerreotypes taken during the 1849 Gold Rush.

Simon Kitson highlights the conflicting demands made on the police in postwar France.

Kenneth J. Baird examines change and continuity in 19th-century British social history.

Richard Pflederer evaluates a vital tool of the age of discovery.

Michael Vickers considers the original value of Greek ceramics, and why it has become inflated in recent centuries.

Keith M. Brown reviews two new titles covering Reformation Scotland.

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of Sherlock Holmes' most famous case, March 25th, 1902.

Andrew Barclay marks the 300th anniversary of the death of William III.

David Welch reviews two new titles on twentieth century propaganda.

Geraint H. Jenkins examines the vicissitudes of modern Welsh history.

Paul Dukes analyses a number of books on the conflict.

Jeremy Black presents his reading of a new history of France under Richelieu, highly commended by the judges in the Longman-History Today Book of the Year category....

Charlotte Crow examines the restoration of Southwell Workhouse, the latest project from the National Trust.

Penny Young uncovers prehistoric rock art in Luxor.

Chris Wickham looks back upon the life of Rodney Hilton, medieval historian and co-founder of Past and Present.

Michael Hunter reflects on the life of the late Roy Porter.

With the final collapse of the Soviet Union on December 1st, 1991, and with the new openness promised by Mikhail Gorbachev well under way, the release to...

Patricia Pearce inspects two new biographies of these men, who through their diaries and drawings, provide a thorough understanding of Stuart London.

Craig Spence uncovers records of black and Asian sailors in the pictorial archives of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

Tom Bowers highlights the latest self-published titles.

Joan Perkin discusses the impact on women’s lives of the advent of the sewing machine.

Helen Rappaport admires a new study of the visionary American reformer Mary Gove Nichols.

Austin Woolrych reflects on how historians’ approaches to the events of 1640-60 have been changing over the half century that he has been working on the period.

David Cannadine recalls the career and personality of an inspirational historian.

David Dutton asks whether Simon was the 'Worst Foreign Secretary since Ethelred the Unready'.

James Walvin reviews current ideas about the vast network of slavery that shaped British and world history for more than two centuries.

Peter Furtado rounds up the best in softback biography this Autumn.

Lucinda Lambton finds her namesake, and much more, in deepest Mississippi.

Martin Johnes reviews a wide-ranging textbook.

The range of quality titles on all periods and aimed at every level continues to grow. Here Tom Bowers previews this season’s leading titles, and reviews some of the...

Pamela Spencer introduces the new museum on St Helena and provides a brief insight into the history of the island on its 500th anniversary.

Twelve years after the first stone of the new building was laid, the state opening of the new Houses of Parliament took place on November 11th, 1852.

Robert Lacey, royal biographer and commentator, describes his enthusiasm for joyously traditional history.

Prophet of European unity or pre-Hitler nationalist bent on wiping out Germany's Versailles humiliation? Sixty years after his death, Jonathan Wright reassesses...

Graham D Goodlad matches source-based questions with the skills needed to tackle them effectively.

Alison Rowlands investigates the case of a 'child-witch' during the Thirty Years War.

Kevin Manton regrets the political decision to remove direct democratic control over education a hundred years ago.

King Farouk was thirty-two when he lost his throne on July 26th, 1952. He had been King of Egypt for sixteen years.

A.D. Harvey compares and contrasts two new books on the evolution and impact of the airship.

Adam Fox reviews a new study of religious culture in Elizabethan and early Stuart England.

Michael Redman sifts through two new surveys which tackle the history of a troubled region.

Robin Evans puts Henry Tudor's victory into Welsh historical perspective.

September 14th, 1402

July 11th, 1302

Richard Cavendish charts the life of the novelist, diarist and playwright Frances Burney who was born on June 13th, 1752.

October 2nd 1452

Angela Brabin uncovers the gruesome tale of serial murder committed by a group of women in the poorest districts of 19th-century Liverpool.

Janet Backhouse reviews a new history of the Bible.

Gordon Corera investigates the events of summer 1938 in Jenin.

Luke McKernan introduces the British Universities Newsreel Database, together with plans for its development.

January 20th, 1503

Peter Stevens on the voyage of the Catalpa.

Kim A Wagner enjoys an entertaining account of the thug cult and the British Raj in nineteenth century India.

Mark Edwards on a new title which follows the development of Christianity in the West.

Robert Pearce delves into a new study of Sir Stafford Cripps

Mark Goldie on a new volume which tackles the seventeenth-century civil service.

Roy Porter discusses the life of the 18th-century essayist and critic.

An overview of the life of Lord Acton of Aldenham, one of the founders of the English Historical Review and Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.

Graham Noble investigates the causes of the rise and fall of French Protestantism.

Graham Darby explains how and why the creation of the Dutch state preceded the existence of Dutch national feeling.

Juliet Gardiner assesses the worth of ‘television history’ and pinpoints the value of ‘reality history’.

John Miller compares three new books assessing the impact of the English Civil War.

Patricia Fara looks at three volumes which tackle the question of the Enlightenment.

May 8th, 1902

Colin Jones discusses the art and artifice of the leading mistress of Louis XV.

John P. Fox compares two new books on the decision making which led to the Holocaust.

December 14th, 1702

King George VI was crowned on May 12th, 1937. He died fifteen years later on February 6th, 1952. Richard Cavendish describes his funeral on February 15th, 1952....

Martin Evans looks at two new studies on the Occupation.

Robert Bud contemplates two new studies of the development of glass and projectile technology.

Devra Davis looks at the London Smog disaster of 1952-53.

Taylor Downing reviews two new books on the cultural history of the First World War.

Taylor Downing recalls the BBC series The Great War.

Placing Colbert in the circumstances of his times, Geoffrey Treasure shows that he was much more than an efficient bureaucrat.

September 2nd, 1752

David Hayton introduces the latest instalment in the History of Parliament series.

Peter Ling surveys two new titles on the history of race-relations.

Sheila Corr on a photographic record of Ireland from 1840 to 1940.

Albert Axell recalls the era of the Japanese Kamikaze pilots, as the first anniversary of September 11th approaches.

Mark Rathbone identifies the missing ingredients that prevented Liberal revival.

Russell Chamberlin observes as Menorca celebrates the bicentennial of the Treaty of Amiens.

Anubha Charan reports on the latest findings from the Gulf of Cambay.

Rana Mitter looks at a new title on the Qing dynasty of China.

Janet L. Nelson reviews the joint winner of the Longman-History Today Book of the Year award.

Though the Euro may seem modern, its roots go back to the 9th century. Simon Coupland introduces the single European currency of Louis the Pious.

Patrick Nold samples a new volume on all facets of the medieval world.

David G. Chandler on three new volumes covering the Napoleonic period.

Robert Pearce examines the first two volumes of the Neville Chamberlain diary letters.

J.H. Elliot reviews two new titles which look at the Dutch imagination and the New World of America and the eighteenth-century dispute of this new land respectively...

Keith M. Brown on the Scottish nobility in the early modern period.

In Europe Philhellenism – the romantic desire arising from admiration of ancient Greece to further understanding of all things Greek – had its origins in the...

Helen Rappaport charts the early efforts of campaigning women to outlaw war.

Christopher A. Whately looks at three new titles covering all aspects of Scottish history.

June Purvis reviews a new study of the Pankhurst women.

Richard Cavendish recreates the events of March 25th, 1802.

On May 31st, 1902, the Peace of Vereeniging was signed, ending the Second Boer War between Britain and the two Afrikaner republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free...

Edgar Feuchtwanger warns against exaggerating the extent or significance of liberalism’s failure in German history.

Katherine Lewis examines two new studies focusing on the medieval papacy.

The essay entitled 'How important was the press in the desacralisation of the French monarchy in 1789?', by Olivia Grant of St Paul's Girls' School, was awarded...

Malcolm Vale argues that the spectacular culture of the early modern court had its origins in the medieval princely household.

Anne Crawford describes Britain’s national archive of official documents, and the ways in which it is developing to meet the changing needs of its users.

Mike Finn looks at the Liverpool press to find out what people back home were told about conditions on the Western Front.

July 11th, 1902

Harold Perkin discusses the role of the extraction and distribution of surplus production in historical change, from Ancient Egypt to the 21st century.

Terence Zuber argues that the German army’s rigid plan for a quick victory in France in 1914 was a postwar fabrication.

Andrew Cook relates the story of Sidney Reilly - the inspiration behind James Bond.

Paul Addison reviews two new studies on the secret planning surrounding the Cold War by the British government.

Simon Lemieux examines the hard facts about the Inquisition and counters the common caricature.

November 13th, 1002

Anthony Head describes the ways in which an atrocity has been commemorated, sixty years on.

F.G. Stapleton examines the momentous social and political consequences of Germany's spectacular economic growth.

Joanna Bourke on two new volumes tackling the traumas of servicemen, both during and after the wars of the modern age.

Leslie Marchant sees the Opium Wars as a philosophical clash between two cultures and two notions of government and society.

Gabriel Fawcett examines the controversy surrounding the Wehrmacht exhibition.

Michael Rosenthal and Martin Myrone look beyond the traditional view of Gainsborough and argue for a view of the painter beyond that of society portraitist, as a...

Felipe Fernández-Armesto takes up the cudgels for historical accuracy.

January 13th, 1953

Paul Cartledge sees ancient Spartan society and its fierce code of honour as something still relevant today.

David Englander describes the 1834 events and their relevance for the future of labour.

Anna Keay describes how the Crown Jewels were dispersed and destroyed in 1649, and then reconstructed in 1661.

Anthony Farrington previews a new exhibition on Asia, Britain and the role of the East India Company.

Jessica Harrison-Hall introduces the upcoming exhibition of Vietnamese art at the British Museum.

Jeremy Black absorbs three new books which focus on the aftermaths of twentieth century conflicts.

David Williamson examines two seemingly irreconcilable schools of thought.

Peter Mandler argues that academic historians have a crucial contribution to make to the nation’s cultural life.

As a new channel dedicated to history opens up in the UK, Tom Stearn excoriates current fashion and points the way to a more historical past on TV.

Howard Baker explains how the chance convergence of two vessels produced tragedy and disaster.

Alun Munslow argues that the centrality of narrative to history undermines empirical views of the subject.

Peter Anderson compares the tactics and resources of the two sides.

Dean Juniper shows the power of a ‘green’ Victorian pressure group in action.

David Nicholls analyses the potential job market for history graduates.