2007

T.G. Otte goes to the heart of Whitehall to explore the origins and future of an important government archive which is becoming far more accessible to historians...

Among the many organizations we rely on to produce this magazine each month, two of the finest are the London Library and the British Library.

Michael Staunton considers how Thomas Becket, a controversial figure even in his own lifetime and ever since, was described by his earliest biographers.

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of the events of February 19th, 1807.

For her latest book, historical biographer Sarah Gristwood has turned to the story of Elizabeth I and Leicester. Here she discusses some of the risks and pleasures of...

Viv Sanders corrects the male bias in the study of the civil rights movement in the USA.

Alexander I succeeded his father Malcolm Canmore, Macbeth's killer, as King of Scots on January 8th, 1107.

In the years before the English Civil War, ecclesiastical architecture became a subject of powerful conflict between the rival wings of the Church. Edward Swift,...

Nick Cullather explains how the scientific discovery of the calorie meant food values could be quantified – and the US could make food an instrument of foreign...

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of the events of February 15th, 1957

Neil Faulkner and Nick Saunders, Co-directors of the Great Arab Revolt Project, tell how a recent field trip to southern Jordan sheds light on the theories and...

As another academic year comes round, so the question of what and how history should be taught in British classrooms is yet again in the spotlight.

On January 5th, 1757, Robert-Francois Damiens attempted to assassinate Louis XV.

Graham Goodlad examines the controversies surrounding the development of royal power under Charles II and James II.

Christopher Phipps introduces one of the capital’s great private institutions, and invites History Today readers to visit on June 28th.

Suzanne Bardgett, director of the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, reports on this ambitious new facility which opened in October.

The ‘voice of history’ was heard loud and clear when the Historical Association, was awarded the prestigious Longman History Today Trustees Award early in January at...

Richard Cavendish provides an overview of the life of Daphne du Maurier, who was born on May 13th, 1907, at 24 Cumberland Terrace in Regent's Park.

Richard the Lionheart was born in Oxford on September 8th 1157.

Richard Wilkinson has enjoyed two books on 17th-century France; Jonathan Dudley has enjoyed a biography of the journalist and political campaigner Henry Nevinson;...

Reviewing a new set of biographies, Robert Pearce sees many posities that deserve to be accentuated but cannot entirely eliminate the negatives.

Will Saunders assesses a new book in an established series, while Richard Wilkinson has immersed himself in two books illustrating the pity of war.

Mark Bryant looks at the work of the Punch artist whose drawings symbolized British anger over the Indian Mutiny and established his own reputation.

Kevin Shillington looks at the impact on Africa of the slave trade, and its abolition 200 years ago this month.

Daniel Scharf of the Oxford Trust for Contemporary History describes the battle to preserve RAF Upper Heyford as a unique monument to the Cold War.

Though it pains me a little to admit it, I strongly suspect that more people learn their history from television than from magazines, books or even schools.

York Membery remembers John By, the brilliant British military engineer responsible for building the 175-year-old Rideau Canal.

As we come to terms with the lifestyle changes that will be forced on us by impending climate change, Mark Roodhouse of Rescue!History, an informal network concerned...

Her race, sex, and a murder mystery were all factors blocking the career of Edmonia Lewis, a 19th-century black American sculptress struggling against the odds at...

After a decade in which the watchwords of govern­ment have been ‘new’ and ‘reform’, we have a change at the top.

To celebrate Black History Month, Malcolm Chase recalls the life of the Soho tailor William Cuffay, the son of a freed slave from St Kitts, who overcame poverty and...

Michael Loewe looks at the dynastic, administrative and intellectual background of the Qin empire, which defined how China would be run for more than 2,000 years,...

 Books and films for the lover of the past

Robert Pearce sees remarkable continuity in Churchill’s outlook, despite the transformation of his fortunes, in the 1930s.

Commodore Peter Wykeham-Martin recommends a tour de force on the Second World War Royal Navy.

Vic Gatrell, recently awarded the PEN/Hessell-Tiltman History Book of the Year award 2006 for his book on the satire of 18th- and early 19th-century Britain, explains...

A century ago international anarchists were causing public outrage and panic with their terror tactics. Matt Carr considers the parallels with al-Qaeda today....

Richard Dale explores the extraordinary life at sea of a 19th-century naval hero.

Kristian Ulrichsen believes that the politicians and planners behind the 2003 invasion ignored the lessons of the first British occupation of Iraq, which began with...

Dietrich Karsten was a Protestant pastor who opposed the Nazi regime in the 1930s but died for Hitler as a soldier in the war. His granddaughter, Lena Karsten,...

The Combined Cadet Force is coming back into fashion, says Ronan Thomas, who believes its wider take-up would help reduce gun and knife crime in Britain’s cities.

Bernard Porter says that today’s advocates of humanitarian intervention would do well to ponder what J. A. Hobson and Ramsay MacDonald had to say a century ago about...

Towards the end of his career with a radio microphone, the old Yorkshire fast bowler Fred Truman was notorious for his less-than-helpful commentary on the cricket.

Peter Furtado visits some remarkable sites rivalling Machu Picchu, the endangered Inca hilltop city which was recently voted one of the seven wonders of the world.

The artist Angelica Kauffman died on November 5th, 1807, aged sixty-six.

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of the death of an important Renaissance political figure, on March 12th, 1507.

July 7th, 1307

August 17th, 1657

The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III died on April  2nd, 1657.

David Roffe asks why exactly Domesday Book, the oldest and most precious of the English public records, was compiled – and for whom.

The historical presence of South Asian men and women in Britain has been ignored for too long, says Shompa Lahiri, who has investigated their experiences during the...

Charlotte Crow describes how a recent visit to India on the 150th anniversary of the Indian Mutiny became a flashpoint for Indians and Britons over   the...

January 25th, 1308

Richard Barber describes the discoveries he made last summer when Channel Four’s Time Team uncovered Edward III’s huge circular building at the heart of...

Judith Richards helps us appreciate a Marian perspective on the reign of the boy-king.

Did it matter that the fifth Tudor monarch was a woman rather than a man? Retha Warnicke investigates.

Elvis Presley died thirty years ago this month. As a young man, he had little interest in politics and rejected the embedded racism of fellow southerners in his...

A. J. Stockwell reviews an "attractively written" volume on the last years of British Imperialism.

Marie Rowlands charts the changing fortunes of a religious minority.

Alison Barnes explains our special fondness for the Christmas legend.

Tim Clancey advises on how to use historians’ writings to your best advantage.

Hanna Diamond examines the mixed experiences of the French men and women of every social class who fled their homes in the mass exodus from the Nazis in 1940, and...

Carola Hicks takes a seasonal look at the stained glass of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, the subject of her new book.

The History Today Film of the Year award has been awarded to the 60-minute documentary Hungary 1956: Our Revolution, written, directed and produced by Mark Kidel and...

Mark Bryant describes the life and works of Abu Abraham, the Observer’s first ever political cartoonist.

The courthouse, built on the site of Newgate Prison, was formally opened on February 27th, 1907.

Kevin Desmond looks for records of a little-known French inventor who rivalled Thomas Edison.

Julius Ruiz evaluates Franco’s role during the conflict.

Andrew Boxer considers explanations for France’s disastrous foreign policy between the wars.

Tobias Grey discusses the impact of a controversial historical novel that has become a literary sensation in France, and asks some French-based commentators and...

Christopher J. Walker asks whether the two religions that frequently appear locked in an inevitable clash of civilizations in fact share more than has often been...

The other day a cousin I rarely see came to lunch, bringing with her the tree of my mother’s family which she has been researching; she had managed to get back to the...

Martin Bell, famous for his BBC reports from the war in Bosnia in the 1990s, celebrates the life and work of the man whom modern war reporters admire the most, The...

Continuing his series on how cartoonists have seen events great and small, Mark Bryant looks at the coverage of one of ‘Victoria’s little wars’.

Patricia Cleveland-Peck goes on the trail of the scientist Linnaeus, whose tercentenary this year is being marked in Sweden at a variety of locations associated...

Lucy Riall discusses the life and career of the Italian nationalist and soldier Giuseppe Garibaldi, and the circumstances by which he became the first celebrity of...

July 15th, 1957

Kenneth Baker discusses the many facets of King George and shows how these were depicted by the great caricaturists of the day.

Robert Bud says we should remember the Asian flu epidemic of 1957 as a turning point in the history of antibiotics.

This West African state was a focus of the slave trade for centuries, and the first African colony to win independence, exactly fifty years ago. Graham Gendall...

Martin Evans talks to the historian of science Rebecca Stott about her new novel in which she explores unexplained events in the life of Isaac Newton, and considers...

Robert Pearce highlights Giuseppe Mazzini’s role in the Risorgimento.

Simon Sebag Montefiore imagines dinner with Catherine the Great, Prince Potemkin and Stalin.

Simon Goldhill explains how he came to be hooked on Greek tragedy at an early age – and has stayed hooked.

Have the British always been a nation of networkers? The Oxford DNB’s latest project, introduced here by Lawrence Goldman, suggests that the answer is yes.

Charles Freeman visits the Eternal City, and finds the Castel Sant’Angelo, home to emperors and popes, to be the clue to unravelling its fabulously rich and...

Anne Sebba ponders some mysteries – or coincidences – that link the adult experiences of Frances Hodgson Burnett with the lives of American women who came to Britain...

With talk of climate change suddenly ubiquitous, we are all having to acquire a basic familiarity with a whole range of disciplines – including chemistry, physics,...

Julie Kerr looks at the role of hospitality to the Benedictine community between the years 1066 to 1250, and how monks and nuns sought to fulfil their monastic...

Derek Wilson explores a promising biography explaining the fall of the Howards.

Jeremy Black reviews two cartography titles.

Fiona Kisby reviews a recent conference on history education and offers a personal view on the aims, nature and significance of history in British schools.

Alan Farmer assesses the personal responsibility of the Führer

January 30th, 1933

Hitler’s armed forces included many thousands of men of Jewish origin. How did this come about, and what were their military experiences like? Josie Dunn and Roger...

Christine Riding looks at William Hogarth’s particular view of the street life of 18th-century London, and at what his interpretation presents in comparison with...

Serving general and military historian Jonathon Riley uses his personal knowledge of command to assess Napoleon’s qualities as a strategist, operational...

John Plowright examines the career of one of the key ministers in Attlee’s postwar governments.

Gabriel Ronay review the History Today Film of the Year 2007

Cartoon historian Mark Bryant tells how a cartoonist made a President cuddly and sparked the creation of the world’s favourite soft toy.

Mihir Bose discusses the paradox that India, a land of history, has a surprisingly weak tradition of historiography.

Fraser Newham finds a connection running from the East India Company’s first mission to Tibet to the completion of the Golmud to Lhasa railway by the Chinese today...

John Horne asks why the heroic efforts of the two Irish divisions, the 16th (Irish) and the 36th (Ulster), in the bloody events on the Western Front in 1916, have...

Clive Foss introduces the Kharijites, a radical sect from the first century of Islam based in southern Iraq and Iran, who adopted an extreme interpretation of the...

Jonathan Harris explores the historical continuities of a city that has been the capital of two major world empires for over 1,500 years, by looking at the...

Philip Morgan explains why Italians have tended to gloss over the period 1940-43, when Mussolini fought against the Allies, preferring to remember the years of German...

Where would you put your vote for Britain’s best historic site for a day out? Somewhere famous and universally celebrated, like Hampton Court or Hadrian’s Wall? Or...

Guy de la Bédoyère delves into a useful biography of the 17th-century diarist.

The artist of the Enlightenment had a little known stay in Liverpool which helped shape his art, and this is the focus of a new exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery...

October 13th, 1307

Larry Gragg digs beneath the glitzy surface of America’s ‘sin city’ to find out how this extravagant home of gambling and glamour came into being.

Richard Willis believes the government should pay attention to the history of teacher-training in its plans for school-based training schemes for graduates.

On December 12th, 1907, Lenin fled to Russia for a second time.

Andrew Robinson explores the first biography of the husband of Virginia Woolf.

April letters from our readers on recent articles and

Readers comments on recent articles in the magazine.

The great historical enthusiasm of our time is for researching the history of our own families: people across the globe are concocting – and sharing – great family...

On the city’s 800th anniversary in 2007, and the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, John Belchem examines Liverpool’s cosmopolitan profile and cultural...

John Shepherd reviews a work by Richard Toye

Dan Snow, who has explored historic battles on television with his father Peter, tells Peter Furtado about the rich collection of stories surrounding his family over...

John Jackson exhumes the extraordinary case of a middle-aged woman from Derby convicted of plotting to murder the Prime Minister.

David Nicholas reveals the skill and good fortune behind Britain’s First World War intelligence operation, and the coup by which the Zimmermann Telegram was...

Neil Pemberton and Michael Worboys tell the fascinating story of how rabies – a disease that still kills thousands worldwide every year – was eradicated from...

Caroline Lawrence, author of the popular Roman Mysteries books, explains how the ancient world first grabbed her attention.

David Gaimster, General Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries of London, introduces a new exhibition he has curated at the Royal Academy focusing on the...

The independent Federation of Malaya came into being on August 31st, 1957.

Tom Bowers sees the launch of a new EU-backed website as a positive force in bridging cultural and historical divisions.

Robert Carr dissects a book frequently referred to but seldom read.

Denis Judd reviews two political biographies.

At a moment when ‘end-timers’ are said to hold sway in Washington, Penelope J. Corfield considers how catastrophic visions of the end of the world have recurred...

Janet Copeland focuses on an important figure in the emancipation of British women.

Thomas Meakin asks to what extent Italian Fascism represented a triumph of style over substance.

Author and journalist Jonathan Fenby explains what started him on an endless journey of exploration into China’s past.

Matthew MacLachlan asks how far Napoleon defeated himself.

Nick Barratt introduces an ambitious new historical website.

July 26th, 2007

Nick Smart welcomes a new and authoritative study of a key figure in interwar Britain.

Patricia Cleveland-Peck visits the Big Apple in search of its blossoming.

Robin Evans examines the connections between language, culture and national identity in 19th-century Galicia.

Paul Preston remembers the journalist and Basque sympathizer who broke the news of the bombing of Guernica, and whose impassioned reports from the front in the...

Bruce Kent analyses this publication on the history of pacifism.

Drawing on classroom experience, Viv Sanders offers advice and seeks answers.

As a new exhibition on the history of camouflage opens at the Imperial War Museum this month, Tim Newark reveals the contribution made by English Surrealists to...

Patrick Little asks why Parliament offered the infamous regicide the crown of England, to what extent he was tempted to take it – and why he finally turned it down...

As India celebrates six decades of independence on this year, Jad Adams examines how, in the world’s largest democracy, one family has come to take centre stage in...

In the latest of our articles on climate change and the study of history, Mark Levene makes an impassioned plea for historians to leave the comfort zone and spell...

Two major museums open new permanent galleries this month, offering new light on our past.

December 31st, 1857

One of the great conspiracy theories of the Second World War is that the ­Americans struck a deal with Mafia mobsters to ­conquer Sicily. Tim Newark exposes...

Charles Hind looks at the work of one of the most influential architects in the world, in his home city of Vicenza, northern Italy.

Jonathan Downs looks at a collection of Egyptian pottery sherds discovered at the National Trust’s mansion, Kingston Lacy, in Dorset.

Colin Jacobson looks at the history of a pioneering photojournalism magazine.

Mark Bryant takes a look at a pioneering magazine that acted as a school for a whole generation of cartoonists. 

Alastair Bonnett argues that radical nostalgia has played a larger role in the formation of English socialism than Marxist historians – and New Labour – allow.

Andrew Pettegree asks why so many small towns in France have magnificent libraries of rare books.

Captain Crispin Swayne describes his work on major feature films as a historical and military adviser, and what he hopes to achieve.

Suzanne Bardgett, director of the Holocaust Exhibition at London’s Imperial War Museum, describes the setting up of the Srebrenica Memorial Room at the scene where...

Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator of Historic Royal Palaces, explains how a seventeenth-century Duke stole her heart while she was still at university.

May 17th, 1257

Robert Fulton's North River Steam Boat (later named the Clermont) made a trial run up the Hudson from New York to Albany on August 17th, 1807.

Stephen Batchelor examines a book on the rivalries of two ancient capitals.

John Etty examines how far history has been moulded by enviroment,

Simon Maghakyan describes the destruction of a vital part of the heritage and early history of Armenians.

Meriel Larken takes the helm of the Yavari, a Victorian ship plying the highest navigable lake in the world.

Andrew Robinson recalls conversations with the famous director about his work, and in particular the recently re-released Urdu film, The Chess Players, made in the...

Paul Dukes assesses a work on the contributions of two leaders at the end of the Soviet era.

Peter Marshall explains how a chance reference in an old local history book led him to reconstruct the story of a 17th-century church scandal, and its afterlife in...

Charlie Cottrell describes the on-going efforts to save for the nation one of its best-loved maritime monuments.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the recovery of Henry VIII’s flagship Mary Rose from the seabed of the Solent. David Childs examines how her long career was...

China and Rome were the two great economic superpowers of the Ancient World. Yet their empires were separated by thousands of miles of inhospitable terrain,...

Shovell's flagship, the Association, struck the Outer Gilstone Rock and sank on October 22nd, 1707.

Douglas Hurd looks at the way in which a Tory leader took a defeated and demoralized party, and reinvented it to appeal to a different and much more modern...

Gervase Phillips examines the extent and significance of an often misunderstood phenomenon.

As Britain gets used to the ban on smoking in public spaces, Virginia Berridge looks at the way attitudes to public health have changed in the last fifty years,...

Peter Furtado explores a new exhibition at Tate Britain that brings the reputation of one of the great Victorian painters up to date.

The Spanish government managed by the Duke of Lerma was forced to declare a moratorium on its debts on November 19th, 1607.

Paul Dukes looks at "one of the best and one of the most useful" recent books on Stalin.  

Jörg Friedrich’s horrifying account of the Allied bombing raids caused a stir on its first publication in Germany. Now it has been translated into English, and...

Jeremy Black reviews this book by Kate Retford which was a runner up in the Longman/History Today Book of the year award.

Robert Colls reviews this new history of the beautiful game.

April  25th, 1707

Richard Cavendish describes the British victory at Plassey in Bengal in 1757. To what extent was the triumph critical to the establishment of British rule in India...

Richard Cavendish describes the motor race to Paris which set off from Beijing on June 10th, 1907.

The Berlin Wall was a tangible symbol of the suppression of human rights by the Eastern bloc during the Cold War, but Frederick Taylor asks whether it was...

The man who wrote the words of 'Hark! the Herald Angels Sing', 'Love Divine, All Loves Excelling' and hundreds of other much-loved hymns was born on December 18th...

Henry Tudor was born on January 28th, 1457, with a claim to the English crown which was extremely slight and intriguingly complicated.

The British bombed the Danish capital for a second time, on September 2nd, 1807.

On April 26th 1937, the Spanish town of Guernica was almost destroyed by German bombers. In this article from our 2007 archive, Paul Preston remembers the...

In the first of a number of articles marking the bicentenary of the bill of March 1807 to abolish the slave trade, Rosie Llewellyn-Jones tells the remarkable story...

Rosalind Crone introduces a database of readers and reading habits since 1450.

Graham Goodlad surveys the variety of interpretations offered by historians of Cromwellian rule in the 1650s.

John Swift examines the events that led the world to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

John Kennedy’s commitment to put a man on the Moon in the 1960s is often quoted – most recently by Gordon Brown – as an inspired civic vision. Gerard DeGroot sees...

October 29th, 1957

Denis Judd reviews a title covering the period from the Battle of Yorktown to the handover of Hong Kong.

The Duke of Orleans was assassinated on November 23rd, 1407.

Pilgrimages were among the earliest forms of historical travelling, and they remain popular in many parts of the world. Alex Koller tries Japan’s most famous Buddhist...

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of March 4th, 1857

During the Seven Years War, Admiral Byng was charged with 'failing to do his utmost'. He was executed on board the Monarch on March 14th, 1757.

Gerald Howson tells the tale of the Spanish republican who invented a jet engine and died during Franco’s coup.

Twenty-five years ago, British forces won an unlikely victory to drive the Argentinians out of the Falklands. Brian James searches for the Task Force’s secret...

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of January 7th, 1558

Robert Pearce attempts to probe the nature of the 1918-22 Coalition.

The Shakespeare First Folio is one of the iconic books in the cultural tradition of the West. Jonathan Bate explains why he is the first scholar for centuries to...

The flight of the earls on September 4th, 1607, was the first of many departures from Ireland by native Irish over the following centuries.

Robert Pearce introduces the First Reform Act and asks why parliamentary reform succeeded in 1832 when earlier reform bills had failed.

Tony Rothman recalls one of the turning points of early modern history, when a heroic defence prevented the rampant Ottoman forces from gaining a strategic...

David Carpenter introduces a major new resource for the understanding of 13th-century history.

Martin Kemp explores the complex and ambiguous relationships between humans and animals in their depictions by artists, and investigates the ways in which animal...

Sudeshna Guha looks at the archaeology of the Indus Civilization, the Bronze Age phenomenon of South Asia, whose study began under the British and has continued...

Paul Brewer looks at the politics behind US involvement in the First World War and how President Woodrow Wilson dealt with those Americans who campaigned against...

The story of the British anti-slavery and abolitionist movements has been dominated by the figures of Clarkson and Wilberforce. Yet, the success of the Slave Trade...

Derek Wilson looks at the great religious reformer and asks why his life and work have seemed so ­significant to so many diverse people for almost 500 years.

The Victoria and Albert Museum’s exhibition, ‘Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design’, opens on March 29th. Becky Conekin looks forward to it.

Although most well-known cartoonists have been men, one of the most influential early figures in the field was a woman, Mary Darly. Cartoon historian Mark Bryant...

Francis Robinson looks for the distinctively tolerant and worldly features of Mughal rule in India and that of the related Islamic dynasties of Iran and Central Asia...

Britain’s first Anti-Slavery Act was ineffective, says Marika Sherwood – British slave traders found ways around it to carry on their profitable activities, while...

Daniel Snowman gives his verdict on this history of the Promenade concerts.

David Childs argues that Mary Rose, the Tudor battleship which was raised twenty-five years ago this month, represented the beginning of British naval greatness....

Alastair Bonnett tells the little-known but extraordinary ‘rags to rags’ story of a radical maverick of the early 19th century.

Jules Hudson and Nick Barratt examine why family history has become the flavour of the month, as the  ‘Who Do You Think You Are? Live’ event at Olympia on May 5-7th...

Simon Ditchfield reviews this new history of the Catholic Church.

Cartoon historian Mark Bryant looks at the origins of the satirical magazine that has attracted a generation of outstanding cartoonists.

Andrew Robinson reviews a book on technology by David Edgerton

For more than 600 black South Africans, there were to be no fine deeds serving for the glory of the British King and for Africa, no quick death in the heat of...

Mark Juddery introduces The Story of the Kelly Gang, possibly the first-ever feature film, now largely lost, that was made a hundred years ago in...

Peter Furtado meets Robert Opie, chronicler of everyday life, who will be opening the doors of his treasure-trove museum of ephemera for a special event for History...

For the duration of the Second World War, the British fought a covert battle against a large-scale influx of forged bank notes that threatened to bust the economy....

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of July 7th, 1807.

Peter Furtado finds out how hundreds of local historical initiatives are changing the political and cultural climate of Northern Ireland.

Tobias Grey introduces a film about the North African soldiers in the Second World War which has taken France by storm, and is opening in Britain on March 30th....

Patricia Cleveland-Peck visits Gotland, the Baltic island where the Viking and medieval pasts are to be found round every corner.

A SELECTION OF FULL-LENGTH ARCHIVED ARTICLES on the First World War

 Roger Moorhouse reviews a title on the Holocaust.

Neil Taylor looks for traces of history visible and invisible in the great square at the heart of Beijing.

Patricia Cleveland-Peck visits a Canadian city that looks to the future yet has an intriguing past.

Patricia Cleveland-Peck visits an annual festival of North American history and culture.

Helen Rappaport visits the town on the Russian-Siberian border that has become a focus for Romanov pilgrimage.

Will the new super-casinos bring about the demise of the commercial bingo hall? Carolyn Downs traces the history of the game back to the eighteenth century and...

York Membery visits Canada’s westernmost city.

Bystanders, victims and perpetrators: the tripartite categorization has become a cliché of historical analysis of the horrors of the past.

The ‘big red books’ of the Victoria County History are being transformed by an injection of £3.5 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund, says John Beckett.

F.G. Stapleton highlights the key role played by the Italian King in the Rise of Mussolini.

Jonathan Phillips explains how Damascus, ‘Paradise of the Orient’ and a spiritual home for Muslims, became a major battleground of the Second Crusade; one in which...

Charlie Cottrell previews the Imperial War Museum’s new exhibition in London on the art of the poster in times of war.

David Mattingly says it’s time to rethink the current orthodoxy and question whether Roman rule was good for Britain.

Can you learn to become a good citizen – or even a loyal subject of the Queen – through the study of history? Can you teach someone what it means to be British...

Fiona Kisby provides practical help for those preparing for the challenging History AEA.

Richard Wilkinson shows that good history is never dull.

Martin Evans recalls the ‘third way’ of Cold War international politics, now all but forgotten.

Andrew Ellis introduces a huge on-going project to publish a series of catalogues showing every oil painting in public ownership in the United Kingdom.

Michael Willis focuses on the origins of the Boer War in a way that could make for a stimulating role-play.

Simon Lemieux explain why witch-hunting ended when so many Europeans supported it.

Gordon Brown’s promised written constitution – if it happens – won’t be the first in British history, as Patrick Little reminds us.

Mark Bryant looks at the way caricaturists viewed the scandal engulfing France at the end of the 19th century.