Britain

For centuries King John has been regarded as the embodiment of an evil ruler. But, says Graham E. Seel, this image is largely the creation of monastic chroniclers with an axe to grind. A close examination of contemporary records reveals a more nuanced character.

As the debate continues on the causes of last summer’s English Riots, Michael Roberts examines previous attempts by reformers to address moral malaise and social breakdown.

As the debate rages about how history should be taught in state schools David Cannadine discusses his recent research project.

Britain’s recent disputes with the European Union are part of a
long historical narrative, argues James Ellison – but it is not the whole story.

The year 1812 was a turning point in the career of the industrialist Robert Owen. Ian Donnachie examines his Essays on a New View of Society, in which Owen first aired the ideas about popular education and workers’ welfare that would make him famous as a reformer.

Richard Almond has trawled medieval and Renaissance sources for insights about ladies’ riding habits in the Middle Ages and what they reveal about a woman’s place in that society.

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.

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.

Bitter feelings between Loyalists and Patriots after the British surrender at Yorktown led to many skirmishes and retaliations.

Concorde began regular test flights above Britain 40 years ago this month. Jad Adams looks back to a time when, wracked by industrial decline, a nation embraced the world’s first supersonic airliner.

The Duke of Marlborough was dismissed from the office of captain-general on December 31st 1711.

Gordon Marsden, a former editor of History Today, reflects on the advertisements that helped to fund the first 20 years of this magazine’s publication and explores the wider messages they reveal about sexism, empire and swinging Britain during the 1950s and 1960s.

At its height, the British Empire was the largest the world has ever known. Its history is central to Britain’s history, yet, as Zoë Laidlaw shows, this imperial past is not an easy narrative to construct.