The History Today Archive

The finest collection of history writing on the web

Welcome to the History Today archive. With over 11,000 articles and three decades worth of writing, it is one of the most comprehensive sources of history writing to be found online.

On this page you will find a featured essay, free to read and updated each day, and selected articles related to topics from current issue of the magazine. You can also browse through back issues of History Today and History Review

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Today's Featured Article

Martin Luther King’s Half-Forgotten Dream

Peter Ling argues that, by adulating King for his work in the Civil Rights campaigns, we have misrepresented the complexity of those struggles and ignored some of the equally challenging campaigns of his last years.

First published in Volume: 48 Issue: 4, 1998

Archive highlights for this month

A selection of additional articles for the February issue of History Today

Spanish Civil War

Uncivil War: The Military Struggle

On the 50th anniversary of the end of Spanish Civil War, Michael Alpert chronicles the ebb and flow of battle between Republican and Nationalists.

The Spanish Civil War: If the Republic Had Won

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 happened allows us new insights into the significance of what did happen.

Medieval Women

Medieval Desire: Poise and Passion in the Middle Ages

Courtly love, celebrated in numerous songs and poems, was the romantic ideal of western Europe in the Middle Ages. Yet, human nature being what it is, the realities of sexual desire and the complications it brings were never far away, says Julie Peakman.

Women Pilgrims of the Middle Ages

‘There’s no discouragement...Shall make him once relent...His first avowed intent... To be a pilgrim.’ Women, however, endured vexations of their own as Diana Webb outlines.

Robert Owen

Matrix of Modernity

Roy Porter discusses how the British Enlightenment paved the way for the modern world.

The Roots of Reform

Patrick Dillon identifies the mid-18th century as a watershed in ideas about reforming society.