1982

'To sum up all, poverty, slavery and innate insolence, covered with an affectation of politeness, give you... a true picture of the manners of the whole nation'...

Norman Davis explains how Poland's geography has been the villain of her history.

Ian Kershaw wonders whether there was one single path of German history leading inexorably to Nazism.

Leah Leneman on the controversial evictions in Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Kathleen Denbigh

J.W. Burrow

Philip Pattenden explores the work of Charles Eamer Kempe at Old Place, Sussex.

Glyn Daniel

Frank Emery on a mid-19th-century biography of a common soldier.

The buildings the British built in India tell us much about how the British shaped India's conception of the past, explains Thomas R. Metcalf, and how they turned...

Was power really devolved to Scotland in 1660, asks John Patrick, when the restoration of Charles II led to the recreation of separate Scottish institutions?

To hundreds of thousands of Indians the British Raj was personified by its administrative arm, the Indian Civil Service, explains Ann Ewing, by which the British...

John S. Haller Jr.

Ruth Dudley Edwards

Captain Batty of the First or Grenadier Guards

John Cohen reviews a history of spectres from ancient times to the present.

The art of India is a vital cultural expression of India. As Partha Mitter explains, it is intertwined with assertions of nationalism, the equation of...

Philip Warner

The autobiographies of ordinary men and women are an important, though neglected, source of social history. John Burnett, Professor of Social History at Brunel...

Picturesque Landscape in Britain, 1750-1850 by Peter Bicknell

Gordon Daniels on the sustained bombardement of the Japanese mainland, prior to the use of the Atomic bombs.

Edited by Charles Webster

In the winter of 1939-40, whilst already waging war against the might of Nazi Germany, Britain, together with France, was preparing to send a military expedition...

by David French

F.H. Hinsley, E.E. Thomas, C.F.G. Ransom and R.C. Knight

The British had been trading in India since 1600. As R.W. Lightbown, it was not, however, until the late eighteenth century that British interest in Indian culture...

Ichisada Miyazaki, translated by Conrad Schirokauer

Francois Kersaudy

An inspiring leader during the dark days of war, Winston Churchill was losing popularity with the Conservative defeat of the post war years. But despite growing...

As a political thinker Cicero has been all manner of things to all manner of men. In order to understand Cicero's political ideas, however, we need to look at the...

Timothy D. Barnes

Alistair Kee

A.L. Rowse on an elegant depiction of 20th century personalities

The London Foundling Hospital in the Eighteenth Century by Ruth McClure

lain A. Cameron

David Jones

'London is rich in historic buildings and monuments, but behind most familiar landmarks lurk the ghosts of abandoned designs and rejected projects.' In this...

T.W. Moody

by Michael Grant

John McManners

The poet Rabindranath Tagore died on August 7th, 1941. Hugh Tinker charts the life of the man who 'was, perhaps, India's greatest son in modern times'.

Keith Mcculloch reviews M.I. Finley's book on the economics and society of Ancient Greece.

by Betty D. Vernon

Christina Larner

In the inter-war years, football was a popular sport which drew huge crowds of spectators. The totalitarian regimes of Germany and Italy, argues Peter J. Beck,...

John Turner regards two publications on fin de siecle high culture.

Maggie Black looks at the history of the seasonal traditions of contrasting fasting and excess.

B.S. Ridgway

The Falkland Islands were at the centre of dispute in 1770 – but was the conflict really over those far-away islands, or was it the political future of the French...

Sakari Sariola looks at the relationship between Finland and the Soviet Union.

A short editorial by Michael Trend.

Christopher Andrew questions official policy towards the history of British Intelligence.

F.J. McLynn

by R.J. Knecht

David Starkey looks at the early Tudor period.

J.P.T. Bury

Guiseppe Garibaldi, the Italian patriot and legendary hero of the risorgimento, died in 1882. His style of leadership - and his famous red shirts - explains Malcolm...

D. C. Watt reviews a book by John P. Fox

Edited by Volker R. Berghahn and Martin Kitchen

Carol Dyhouse

Glanz und Untergang des Inkareiches Lieselotte and Theo Engl

D.G. Chandler finds much of interest in this account of Puritan communities on both sides of the Atlantic

Review by Esmond Wright

Robert Graves

Christopher Andrew reflects on a light-hearted side to the British security services.

Nigel Fisher

Carl-Alexander von Volborth

Rene Elvin examines two studies that bring the history of France to life.

William Martin, completed by Pierre Beguin and Alexandre Bruggmann

Edited by Malcolm Falkus and John Gillingham

Arthur Marwick explores two works on the illumination of sociology and class in 19th-century England.

Edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valerie Pearl and Blair Worden

Sir Horace Wilson was born a hundred years ago. His career broke the tradition of the anonymous civil servant. During the Munich crisis he became a controversial and...

R.W. Brunskill

The Modern History  of the International Law of Armed Conflict by Geoffrey Best

A short editorial by Michael Trend.

As with his mentor, Christopher Wren, it is only necessary to look around, explains Bryan Little, to see the monuments to James Gibbs, that prolific early eighteenth-...

Jenny Wormald on a major work on 15th-century Scottish history.

Denis Judd reviews an infamous episode in 1895 in the Transvaal.

Jean-Pierre Lehmann explores Japan's transition from isolation to internationalisation.

Richard Sims looks at Japanese fascism in the 1930s.

Malcolm Vale reviews a book by Marina Warner.

Edited and introduced by A.D. Murray

Polymnia Athanassiadi-Fowden

Juries are generally believed to be the collective voice of free-born Englishmen, but in the aftermath of Civil War the system was at the centre of debate about the...

A short editorial by Michael Trend

Pauline Gregg

The Japanese Emperor Hirohito, introduced by Richard Storry.

John A. McClure

Kipling's view of imperialism, explain Fred Reist and David Washbrook, was a more complex one than his single, famous line quoted often out of context, 'Oh, East...

Alain Croix

Edited by Frank Wende

R.F. Foster

Denis Judd

Ian Bradley on a biography of a Liberal Viceroy and long-standing governmental servant.

David Starkey on a recent history of the Peerage.

Ivan Roots reviews two books on familial and social history

Klaus Doerner

Maiden Castle, an enormous earthwork two miles from Dorchester, Dorset, dominates the local landscape. The hill-top site, explains William Seymour, shows traces of...

Keith Mcculloch reviews a book on Anglo-Norman medical history.

This article by Heather Norris and Roger Kain illustrates some of the ways in which increasingly elaborate methods of town fortification affected the nature of urban...

Montagu House was built by the first Duke of Montagu, who 'made money like a rogue and spent it like a gentleman' on his patronage of the arts, the finest examples...

John Bintliff on a study of the most famous 20th-century archaeologist.

Paul Preston on two publications redressing the balance of biographies on Il Duce.

From the Restoration in 1660 until 1714, England was intermittently at war with first the Dutch and then the French - and it became imperative, argues Howard...

Gerrard Roots examines two books on the significance of the past and pastoral life.

A collection of essays presented to Sir Edgar Williams

Ian Bradley reviews the first massive volume on the British statesman

Keith Robbins poses the question of religious and political affinities of Roman Catholics in the context of the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Rounding Up the latest batch of historical publications at affordable prices

The current paperbacks of the month.

This article by Yves-Marie Bercé is the second extract from Our Forgotten Past: Seven Centuries of Life on the Land, edited by Jérome Blum (Thames & Hudson).

Norman Davies finds that Poland is a repository of ideas and values which can outlast any number of military and political catastrophies.

Robert Frost provides a brief overview of four key Polish characters.

Review by Gordon Daniels

Juliet Gardiner examines the memoirs of the late French President, Georges Pompidou.

1982 marks the tercentenary of the death of Prince Rupert, the most brilliant of Charles I's generals. As Hugh Trevor-Roper here documents, he was single-minded in...

N.L. Jones reviews an ecclesiastical study of the early modern period.

Andrew Pettegree reviews a book on Elizabethan politics.

Franz Herre

Paul Kennedy rounds up the historiography of appeasement.

Judith Brown surveys the relevant literature for understanding Indian society and history.

Jonathon Riley-Smith explores the historiography of the Crusades.

John Morrill examines the historiography of the English Civil Wars.

Roy Porter on the European concept of Enlightenment.

Hew Strachan reviews historians' approaches to the Great War.

Edward Acton outlines the historiography of the Russian Revolution.

Paul Preston looks at the historiography of the Spanish Civil War.

David Starkey provides a historiographical guide to the fifteenth century English monarchy.

Edited, with an Introduction, by Beverley R. Placzek

In the first half of the seventeenth century, Ireland in effect changed hands, and Redmond O'Hanlon was one of the many dispossessed who made parts of Ireland...

Frederick Hobley remembers his nineteenth-century school and university days.

Francis Robinson on an epic film of the life of the Indian politician, released in December 1982.

Brian Powell remembers the Emeritus Professor of Japanese Studies and his skill in bringing the history of the Far East to a Western audience.

Architect. And His Work For the Marquesses of Bute by Gavin Stamp

Gillian Tindall reviews a work on the English folk hero of Sherwood Forest

Martin Henig reviews a work on Roman Britain.

Before the coming of industrialisation in Europe, the vast majority of men and women lived in the countryside, working the land, surviving the best they could,...

The Allies and the Russian Collapse, March 1917-March 1918 by Michael Kettle

Seventy-five years ago the Scout movement started in Britain, explains Victor Bailey, an authentic expression of the Edwardian age of Empire.

by Jeffrey Weeks

In this review article Andrew Saint evokes the age of the great department stores - those paternalistic emporiums selling the widest range of merchandise which...

Rodney Dennys looks at the heraldry of the Falkland Islands.

The transition of Henry VIII from Renaissance monarch to the Reformation patriarch, supreme head of the Church of England can be charted through the visual images of...

John Campbell on an overdue biography of the Clement Atlee

'Now the door has opened.../ ... none shall be turned away/ from the shore of this vast sea of humanity/that is India', wrote Tagore, the poet and cultural...

There is evidence, argues Adrian Tronson, to suggest that the thirteenth-century Mali empire, and its ruler Sundiata, were strongly influenced by the life of...

From 1858 until 1945, explains Frances Stewart, the Andaman Islands served as a penal colony for the British Empire. The islands were also valued for their good...

Maxime Rodinson

The visit of Pope John Paul II to England, Scotland and Wales, has brought to the fore interest in the complex relations which have existed between the Papacy and...

'Thrice had his foot Domingo's island prest, Midst horrid wars and fierce barbarian wiles; Thrice had his blood repelled the yellow pest That stalks, gigantic,...

Jonathan Mirsky reviews.

Keith McCulloch samples a magisterial historiography

John D. Pelzer explains how the casual gathering of like-minded coffee-drinkers would influence British political and intellectual life for decades.

The boy-king Henry VI was crowned King in England and in France. But the symbols of regal majesty at his Coronations, argue Dorothy Styles & C.T. Allmand,...

Eamon Duffy on a wide-ranging new work on the Catholic Reformation in Europe and beyong.

D. C. Watt reviews A Study in Competitive Co-operation by David Reynolds

Jolyon Howorth on a compelling study of a political movement in France in the latter 19th century.

Translated and Annotated by G. W. Groos

Roy Porter reviews three books on the politics of the 18th century.

Review by K. McCulloch.

Kenneth D. Brown

John Murdoch, Jim Murrell, Patrick J. Noon and Roy Strong –

The Fall and Flight of Napoleon, 1814-1815

A review of a book about the reign of King Henry VI.

Simon Adams explores two titles on Familism and Puritanism.

Ivan Roots considers a well-researched local history of unrest during the English Civil War

A short editorial by Michael Trend.

Introductory article on the upcoming Festival of India in Britain.

During the Highland rebellions from the mid-seventeenth century, explains David Stevenson, the fighting highlanders developed a remarkable military tactic which...

John Martin Robinson reviews a book by Joseph Ryckwert

In 1956 the Suez Canal seemed to flow through every British drawing room and the limits of British power and influence were forcefully brought home - but it had...

Revolution and Red Tape by Clive H. Church

Paul Dukes on a comprehensive new life of Rasputin

Taylor Downing finds contemporary relevance in a study of the Jewish question and historical links between America and Israel.

by Albert Seaton

The Culture of the Stuart Court, 1603-42 by Graham Parry

British Perceptions of the World in the Age of Enlightenment by P.J. Marshall and Glyndwr Williams

Arnold Toynbee

The House of Commons, 1558-1603, Edited by P.W. Hasler

The History of Parliament: The House of Commons,1509-1558. Edited by S.T. Bindoff. 3 vols (xv and 745 pp; x and 656; x and 687) (Secker and Warburg for the History...

Keith McCulloch on an important contribution to the history of anthropology

D.O. Morgan reviews

Michael A.R. Graves

Roy Porter reviews a book on scientific racism.

Lindsay Duguid reviews a book on Victorian era children's fiction.

The British like to think they created modern India, but the firm foundation of the Indian state and the growth of a powerful Indian national identity is no less the...

Paul Cartledge reviews.

In 1940 India was vital to British interests, explains Robert Mason, but it was to prove a delicate political matter to find a suitable viceroy to look after those...

Charles Townshend reviews.

T.P. Wiseman reviews a new book by E.T. Salmon

The publication of Exploring the Urban Past edited by David Cannadine and David Reeder, The Rise of Suburbia edited by F.M.L. Thompson and The English Terraced House...

Douglas Porch

Francis Robinson uncovers recent research on the Islamic vision of Europe from the 7th to the 8th centuries.

J.L. Talmon

John Banville

Chapel and Politics, 1870-1914 by D.W. Bebbington

Famous Books in the History of Science: an exhibition at the British Library. The Wellcome Museum of the History of Medicine: at The Science Museum at South...

Andrew Sinclair

Lvan Roots reviews a book on the outbreak of the Civil War.

Colin Platt

In the last days of his life, explains William S. McFeely, Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War General and twice President of the United States, sat on the porch of his...

Michael Trend reviews three books on the prehistory and Anglo-Saxon era.

Nine weeks of the Stuart Parliament during its most important phase.

Juliet Gardiner charts the progress of the project to raise the Mary Rose from the seabed.

In post-reformation England, recusants were punished for their failure to attend Church of England services. The Tichborne family, explains Teresa McLean, was amongst...

Charles Townshend reviews.

The Life and Times of Scrope Berdmore by T.A.J. Burnett

Ian Roy reviews a title on one aspect of the English Civil War.

The Tudor warship Mary Rose sank in 1545 whilst leading the attack against a French invasion fleet in the Solent. Four and a half centuries later, it was...

The Limits of the Possible, Vol I of Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th century by Fernand Braudel, translated by Sian Reynolds.

This is the text of the Sir John Neale lecture delivered at University College, London on December 7th, 1981.

In the past, during times of high unemployment, schemes of public works were often developed. This was not only because of the mounting costs of relief, but also...

Paul Dukes reviews two books on the development of the Cold War.

Edited by Mary Freer Keller

 Essays presented to Richard William Southern - Edited by R.H.C. Davis & J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, with the assistance of R.J.A.I. Catto & M.H. Keen

Sonia Keppel

John McVeagh

Celia Jones previews this magificent exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Johann Friedrich Reichardt. 304 pp. (1980)

Spread over some ten square miles of the rocky Deccan plateau, explains Geroge Michell, are the remains of the once great city of southern India, Vijayanagara, which...

Malcolm Vale

Essential study of the First World War and how it transformed the machinery of government.

In this article, the complex relationship between England and the Principality is reflected, as D. Huw Owen traces the claimants of this title from 1245 to 1490,...

John Dixon Hunt reviews a work on an outstanding botanist and horticulturalist.

Elizabeth Fernea reviews a book on Islamic history.