1998

Charles Webster reflects on the achievements and shortcomings of fifty years of the National Health Service.

Nicholas Bourbon was a humanist, poet and religious reformer, and a member of Anne Boleyn’s circle. Eric Ives shows how his work throws new light on the Henrician...

Edited by Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude SchmittVolume 2: Stormy Evolution to Modern TimesEdited by Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt

A. D. Harvey

Claire Tomalin previews a National Portrait Gallery exhibition which focuses on mother and daughter Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.

Jay Winter describes the mixed emotions of combatants and non-combatants at the moment the Great War ended.

John Reader

A 19th-century French novelist’s vision of the future included not just television, air transport and women in the workplace, but also biological warfare and...

Patrick Morley tells how a small wartime radio network for us troops in Britain in 1943 provoked a fierce reaction from certain quarters at the BBC

Jeremy Black looks at the past, and future, of British and national identity.

A profile of the issues raised by A level questions on this history topic.

Was Richard Arkwright really the mechanical genius of the Industrial Revolution? Karen Fisk questions his record as Britain’s first cotton tycoon.

John Horgan examines the attempts by the new Irish Free State government to disarm the IRA at the end of the civil war in 1923 and the way in which the issue of...

Richard Cavendish marks the arrival of the Empire Windrush, carrying some 500 settlers from Jamaica, at Tilbury Dock.

When Umbria suffered an extended earthquake sixteen months ago, international attention was particularly focused on Assisi where unique ceiling paintings by Giotto,...

Richard Cavendish marks the anniversary of an important victory for the Habsburg empire, on July 25th, 1848.

Our seasonal preview of new books.

The massacre of the army of Sudanese Dervishes on a plain near Omdurman on September 2nd, 1898, was an occasion that a new military technology by Britain in battle...

August 1st, 1798

New research suggests the Beowulf poem can be traced to North Kent.

Jim Broderick looks at the crisis management of two moments when the spectre of nuclear war shadowed relations between the superpowers.

As Britain prepares to receive the Emperor Akihito on his first state visit, we look at two aspects of the relationship between Japan’s past and its present. In this...

David CressyThe Parish in English Life, 1400-1600Katherine L. French, Gary G. Gibbs and Beat A. Kümin (eds.)

Pamela Tudor-Craig describes the origins of her fascination with the Middle Ages and the moment which decided her path as a Medievalist

Alex Werner previews a new exhibition on skeletons at the Museum of London.

Richard Wilkinson considers how useful students will find new books on the early modern period.

Richard Wilkinson commends recent assessments of early-modern monarchs and their ministers.  

Glenn Richardson assesses a major addition to the list of royal biographies.  

Edgar Feuchtwanger considers new books on modern Germany history.

Matthew Christmas estimates the impact of new studies of the Third Reich.

Ivan Roots adjudicates between two heavyweight reference books.

Robert Pearce assesses 3 recent books on modern British history and politics.

William Rubinstein praises a volume in the new Access to History: In Depth series.

Graham Darby considers the latest batch of books on a perenially popular subject.

Martin Pugh reviews a new book on female suffrage.

Peter Furtado reviews the National 1798 Visitor Centre in Ireland.

Stuart Woolf outlines the ambiguous but deep and intense relationship between Britain and the Continent

Christopher Ray queries the accepted pictures of a reluctant victim of forces beyond her control.  

Scott Hughes Myerly

The French port fell to the English army on August 4th, 1347

Asa Briggs reviews two biographies by Kenneth O. Morgan and Patricia Hollis.

Paul CartledgeGreek Civilisation: An IntroductionBrian Sparkes

Chris Wrigley, President of the Historical Association, tells of the new campaign to make history freely available to all who wish to study it.

Girolamo Cardano was one of the great renaissance polymaths in the tradition of Leonardo. Allan Ashworth explains the significance of his key mathematical work.

Janet L. Nelson looks at the history of this church in the small town in the North-Rhine Westfalia region of western Germany.

December 31st, 1928

A sample selection of books and gifts for children and adults with a historical theme.

David Stafford, Churchill as Peacemaker | James W. Muller, Nothing Sacred: Nazi Espionage against the Vatican | David Alvarez and Robert A. Graham

1930s Shanghai was notoriously populated by characters of dubious political and moral allegiances. Bernard Wasserstein shows how the Japanese used their contacts...

The American Civil War provided commercial opportunities for the sailors and industrialists of Glasgow, not all of them in line with official government policy....

Daniel Pipes

Assessing Channel 4’s four-part drama Mosley, Paul Martin questions the role of the fascist bogeyman in our national consciousness.

Nigel WestI Spy: The Secret Life of a British AgentGeoffrey Elliot

Charlotte Crow takes a look at Down House, the home of Charles Darwin and his family from 1842 to 1883.

Daniel Snowman writes about the new Director of the Institute of Historical Research and author of books on aristocracy, class and the monarchy.

Martin Pugh reassesses the long career of one of the most unorthodox but charismatic and constructive figures in modern British history.

The first chancellor of the German Empire died on July 30th, 1898, aged 83.

August 3rd 1948

The author of 'Wuthering Heights' died on December 19, 1848, aged 30.

One of Elizabeth I's court favourites died on August 4th, 1598, aged 77.

Richard Cavendish remembers the events of February 11th, 1948

David Garner looks at 19th century Africa through the diaries of James Butler

Nicholas Doumanis discovers surprisingly favourable memories of Italian occupation from the Dodecanese Greeks who experienced it between the years 1912-43.

Susan WisemanSusan WisemanUnbridled Spirits: Women of the English Revolution, 1640-1660Stevie Davies

Dirk Bennett describes the crowded religious calendar of pagan Rome, and the spiritual market place in which Christianity had to fight for domination.

Edited by Ian CroweEdmund Burke and out Present DiscontentsJim McCue

As the second Elizabethan age closes in disillusionment, Penry Williams reconsiders whether the first deserved the same fate.

September 21st, 1898

Paul Strohm

David Buisseret (ed)New Found Lands, Maps in the History of ExplorationPeter Whitfield

Richard Cavendish describes the events leading up to the execution of the Florentine friar Savonarola, on May 23rd, 1498.

Britain's working-class Chartist movement organised a mass meeting at Kennington Common on April 10th, 1848.

John Dunne signposts main landmarks and current directions in the historiographical debate.

The 1954 lawsuit brought against the US Army by Joseph McCarthy marked a turning point in public attitude towards the ‘Red Scare’ Senator. Thomas Doherty tells how...

Milton Goldin explores Himmler’s ambitions to establish the SS as a ‘state within a state’, and highlights schemes the Nazis devised to finance the organisation...

Richard Cavendish visits the Sussex home of the Gage family.

Rebecca Daniels celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the Victorian Society, which set out in 1958 to save nineteenth-century architectural gems from destruction...

Richard Cavendish describes the formation of the state of Israel, proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion, on May 14th, 1948.

The Darien Colony was founded by Scottish emigrants on November 3rd, 1698. But it all went horribly wrong.

Nick Tiratsoo (ed)Fifty Years On: A Prejudiced History of Britain Since the WarRoy HattersleyClem AtleeFrancis Beckett

Samuel MarkTemples of Ancient EgyptByron E Shafer

Peter Furtado examines a long-term internet project to chart every known Canadian war grave.

Penny Young reveals the recent archaeological finds on the Gaza Strip.

Asa Briggs reviews a book by Christopher Hibbert

Attempts to regrow the Glastonbury thorn after it died in 1991.

Dominic Janes describes how the early Church reconciled its teaching of holy poverty with the accumulation and display of spectacular wealth.

Mikhail Gorbachev's period as President of the Soviet Union, 1985-91, was truly revolutionary. But Steven Morewood argues that he failed to understand or control...

Dagmar FriestInventing a Republic:The Political Culture of the English Commonwealth, 1649-53Sean Kelsey

Lynne Withey

Options on Heritage Open Days, including the Gunpowder Mills

Ian Scott traces the hundred-year history of heroin, from cough medicine to underworld narcotic.

Edited by William Lamont

Ian Kershaw

Andrew Pettegree charts Hans Holbein’s path from Germany to England and points to the ironies of his reputation as a great Protestant painter.

Patricia Fara investigates how the many paintings, prints and cartoons of Joseph Banks, botanist, explorer and scientific administrator, influenced public attitudes...

Edited by Geoffrey CubittBritish Consciousness and Identity. The Making of Britain 1533-1707Edited by Brendan Bradshaw and Peter Roberts

The latest multimedia innovations and their usefulness to historians.

In assessing the achievements of the Catholic Monarchs, Geoffrey Woodward has to distinguish between propagandist myth and historical reality in order to reach a...

Raphael Samuel (edited by Alison Light, with Sally Alexander and Gareth Stedman Jones)

Gavan McCormack analyses the attempts by the Japanese nation to deal with its uncomfortable past.

The troubled history of the region, and the deep-rooted antagonisms between the different ethnic groups laying claim to it.

Paula Goddard marks the closure of the London Tea Auction.

Austin Mitchell and David WienirAtleeRobert PearceRetreat from New Jerusalem: British Politics 1951-64Kevin Jefferys

Alain Corbin

The second of the two Longman/History Today prize-winning essays on the topic ‘Is distance lending enchantment to the view historians have of the British Empire...

Charlotte Crow explores a new interactive museum devoted to the First World War.

Stephen Spielberg’s blockbuster Amistad claims to educate as well as entertain; but how accurate is his portrayal of this slave revolt? John Thornton looks at the...

John Morrill re-examines a stormy period of religious history.

Vivienne Larminie explores the history of the Pays de Vaud, showing how resistance to Protestant reform gave rise to a distinctive culture and, in 1798, a revolt...

Barbara Mitchell reviews two books on Anglo-Saxon England.

Kit Wedd visits the Kensington home of artist Edward Linley Sambourne.

January 6th, 1899

William St Clair

Prince Louis Napoleon was forty when he won the election for the French presidency on December 10th, 1848.

To mark the quincentenary of Louis Xll's accession in 1498, Glenn Richardson examines the French king's reign and suggests significant points of comparison with...

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...

Geoff Butcher describes how, throughout history, Malaria has played a major role in affecting the outcome of human endeavour.

Review by Olivier Burckhardt

The monastery was the focus of the local community in many medieval towns. Emma Mason describes the way of life of the monks and the young people in their care in...

Louise Westwood celebrates sixty years of that very British institution, the WVS.

The Morris Minor was launched at the British Motor Show of 1948, which opened at Earl's Court on October 27th.

Nicholas DoumanisStalinism and Nazism. Dictatorships in ComparisionEdited by Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin

The Spirit of the Age or The Scourge of Nations? Jeremy Black sets the scene for our major series on the impact of Napoleon on Europe.

How Napoleon laid up trouble for future generations of Frenchmen by kick-starting Prussian and German domination of Eastern Europe, by Tim Blanning.

Poland is the only country in the world to invoke Napoleon in its national anthem. Andrzej Nieuwazny explains how Bonaparte has retained a hold over Polish...

Bonaparte has sometimes been acclaimed as the greatest military commander in history. In our final article in this series, David Gates reviews his contribution to...

A.D. Harvey reviews two biographies of Napoleon.

With his own elaborate imperial court, with his family ensconced on thrones across the continent, and with his overthrow of several historic republics, Napoleon...

A.D. Harvey looks at the enduring myth surrounding one of history’s ‘Great Men’, and how he dominated the nineteenth-century imagination outside France.

Jeremy Black tells how the delicate system of international relations and ancien regime diplomacy was shattered by the Emperor’s arrogance and refusal to play by...

William D. Rubinstein reviews two books on Nazi Germany.

Tony Aldous considers the Landmark Trust: an organisation that maintains historic properties and lets them out to holidaymakers.Enthusiasts for holidaying in...

Claire Cross shows how the experiences of English Protestant exiles on the Continent, and Continental exiles in England, affected Protestantism in the Sixteenth...

John Morrill reviews a book by Roy Sherwood.

Richard Cavendish explores Levens Hall in Cumbria.

Richard Cavendish remembers the opening of the 'Austerity Olympics', July 29th, 1948

Public Record OfficeBattlefront: 1st July 1916. The First Day of The SommePublic Record OfficeChurchill: The War Leader, 1940-45Public Record Office

Richard Vinen questions whether the recently convicted Maurice Papon was charged with the correct crime.

Peter Furtado on the creation of a vast online photographic library

Richard Cavendish visits Plas Newydd, the seat of the Marquess of Anglesey.

Robert Frost reveals a neglected influence on his reforms.

Charles Esdaile explores grass roots opposition to Napoleonic rule, the forms it took and how the empire fought back.

Richard Tames introduces an exhibition that explores posters in their many forms at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In defending the study of history, Richard J Evans argues that the extreme exponents of Postmodernism are Emperors with No Clothes.

Graham Norton recounts the story of the sinking of the First World War Austro-Hungarian dreadnought, the Szent István, in view of the recent expeditions to the wreck...

The image of the American Civil War as a ‘white man’s fight’ became the national norm almost as soon as the last shot was fired. Susan-Mary Grant looks at the...

The importance of teaching history to younger children and the risks of its removal as a key subject from the primary curriculum

Many have dismissed the last Stuart monarch as a nonentity or a figure of fun. Yet according to Richard Wilkinson she does not deserve her tarnished reputation....

The Battle of Marathon has long been presented as the decisive moment at which Greeks led by the newly democratic Athenians gained the upper hand over the despotic...

Roy Porter, in his Longman/History Today lecture, warns of the bad eyesight, poor posture, incomprehensible babblings, addled wits, depravity and worse that may...

Brian Ward, author of a new book on the links between Rhythm and Blues music and the Civil Rights movement, tells of Martin Luther King’s little-known experiences...

Edited by Peter Alter.

B.W. Young

With the future of the House of Lords up for debate, Edward Pearce recounts the furore surrounding the passing of the 1911 Parliament Act.

J.R. Maddicott reveals Nigel Saul's biography of the medieval monarch.

Paul Jordan

Ronald Hutton describes the origins of his historical quest for self-discovery.

A Jewish-born Carmelite nun murdered at Auschwitz and due to be canonised by the Pope in October, is claimed to have been betrayed to the Nazis by a high-ranking...

Mariya Sevela gathers oral recollections from the people of Karafuto, a Japanese colony on the island of Sakhalin from 1905 until the arrival of the Soviet army...

Ian Bremner reviews the Steven Spielberg film about D-Day and after

Renaissance Venetians developed a sophisticated technology for keeping the city’s vital waterways free from silt and in the process, as Joseph Black explains,...

Marina Warner traces the origins of a lifetime’s curiosity in the power of stories.

Trevor Fischer takes a second look at the Victorian prime minister's fascination with street-walkers.

The social, sexual and demonic power of women was an important theme in the popular print of Germany and the Low Countries in the 16th century, as Julia Nurse shows...

Ian Bradley reflects on the origins and development of Christmas carols.

John W. Mason gives the historical background to this month's elections in Slovakia.

The 20th century has seen the destruction of several art collections in Hungary by the SS and, later, the Red Army.

Jeremy Black looks at the Royal Mail’s decision to devote all their stamps in 1999 to British history over the last millennium.

Richard Cavendish highlights a new exhibition at the Tate which celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Historic Houses Association.

Steven Parissien

Derek Wilson argues the merits of the historical novel as a valid and enjoyable means of fuelling interest in the past

Martin Carver

October 1st, 1918

Pauline Croft on an art exhibition in Belgium on Albert and Isabella of Austria.

Simon BartonMedieval Iberia. Readings from Christian, Muslim and Jewish SourcesEdited by Olivia Remie Constable

Mark Goldie celebrates a new Bill of Rights and looks at its precedent

Richard Cavendish marks the birth of a Wild West icon, on March 19th, 1848.

Bruce Waller looks at recent debate about modern Germany's greatest statesman.

A trio of books on the Black Death and its impact on western civilisation.

Adrian BaileyChronicles of the CeltsIain Zaczek

Roy Jenkins

Taylor Downing introduces one of the most ambitious television history series of recent years, financed by Turner Broadcasting.

Gordon Marsden on the origins and future of the project to chart the history of the Houses of Parliament.

Brian Catchpole remembers the sufferings and heroism of the Commonwealth Division in the first major conflict of the Cold War.

Jean Wilson recounts the fascinating tale behind the stone pillar erected by Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, on a roadside in Cumbria.

On December 20th, 1898, Pierre Curie scrawled the word 'radium' in his notebook as the name for a new element he and his wife Marie had discovered in their...

Giacomo Casanova died on June 4th, 1798. His autobiography guaranteed him an enduring reputation as a womaniser; but there was more to him than that.

Isaac Watts died on November 25th, 1748, aged seventy-four, in Stoke Newington, Hackney.

On June 15th, 1098, the army of the First Crusade discovered the Holy Lance – the very spear that had pierced Christ’s side on the cross - in the city of Antioch...

Richard Cavendish explains some of the consequences of the signature of the Edict of Nantes on April 13th, 1598.

Michael Broers explores the measures and restrictions imposed by Napoleon on his many subjects and how, within the boundaries of the Empire, they responded to his...

John Adamson argues that the importance of the Celtic fringe in the events of the 1640s has been exaggerated.

Graeme Barker and Tom RasmussenCelts and RomansPeter Beresford Ellis

In the aftermath of 1798 the British had to deal with thousands of political prisoners. Michael Durey traces the mixture of decisiveness, pragmatism and clemency...

Seeing the potential of the new technology, William Henry Smith opened his first railway bookstall on November 1st, 1848.

Richard Cooled

Peter Monteach comments on German historian Christian Gerlach's study of Adolf Hitler's announcement of his "decision in principle" to murder all of Europe's Jews...

John Breuilly looks at the attempt to create a German nation-state and how it foundered on the questions of national minorities, border disputes, shared sovereignty...

Richard J. EvansThe Victorian UnderworldDonald Thomas

Archaeologists in Turkey believe they could have unearthed some of the remains of the Great Palace of the Byzantine Empire which ruled much of the known world for...

Graham Darby provides a timely reconsideration of why the conflict went on for so long and why the Central Powers lost.

John Adler explores the changing interpretations of Shakespeare’s history plays on stage - from Garrick to the new Globe.

Stuart Clark

The 1867 Reform Act did not set the British electoral system in stone until the Third Reform Act of 1884-85. John Walton reveals that its effects were complex,...

June 1998 saw the 200th anniversary of an important challenge to British rule in Ireland. Here we trace the chain of events.

Richard Rathbone reviews a book on Idi Amin.

Edward Pearce

On the tercentenary of the fire that destroyed it, Simon Thurley describes the significance of the royal Palace of Whitehall to the Tudor and Stuart monarchs who...

Christopher Dyer uncovers a hidden village in North Yorkshire.

Michael Camille shows how the marginal illustrations of a 14th-century psalter became some of our most familiar images of everyday life in medieval England.

Ed Young investigates the ancient process of Egyptian mummification.

Robin BlackburnGeneral History of the Caribean, volume III: The slave Societies of the Caribbean.Franklin W. KnightThe Slave Trade. The History of the Atlantic Slave...

Courtier, soldier, explorer, colonist, scholar, family man, libertine: in his life Elizabeth's favourite played many parts, and posterity has accentuated each...

Roger Hennessy tells of a hundred years of investigation, imagination and speculation about life on Mars.

One of the industrial disputes of early 20th century America ended in a tragic accident that was remembered in folk song. Saronne Rubyan-Ling explores the cultural,...

Controversy has raged about Hitler's military and economic preparations for war. Did he intend a world war or a series of short conflicts? Richard Overy argues...

Edited by Nicholas CannyVolume IIEdited by P J Marshall

When in 1681 pirate Bartholomew Sharpe captured a Spanish ship and with it a detailed description of the west coast of the Americas, he gave English cartographers...

Jeremy Black charts its growth in Victorian Britain.

Diana Webb reviews a title on the Reformation.

Carl Peter Watts examines a set of reforms which held out the prospect of modernising Russia but whose failure paved the way for revolution.

Pamela Tudor-Craig reviews a book by Jonathan Hughes

Alan Watkins

Jackie Guy journeys down the revolutionary roads of North and South Carolina.

Emma Dench reviews a new book by Beryl Rawson and Paul Weaver.

Derek Antrobus uncovers the origins of the Vegetarian Society.

Andrew Gordon

Robin Milner-GullandA History of Twentierth-Century RussiaRobert ServiceThe Making of Modern RussiaLionel Kochan...

N.A.M. Rodger

The British Library buys one of the most important manuscripts in England.

The United States battleship was blown up in an explosion which killed 260 men on board on February 15th, 1898. What caused the explosion and who was responsible...

Clive Webb reviews a book on the 1960s.

Stephen Williams and Gerard Friell analyse why Constantinople survived the barbarian onslaughts in the fifth century, whereas Rome fell.

Richard PipesRussia after LeninVladimir Brovkin

On October 24th 1648, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, marking the end of the Thirty Years' War.

Sean Kelsey reconsiders the events of January 1649 and argues the trail was skilfully appropriated by rump politicians in paving the way for the new Commonwealth.

In this assessment of Tudor peers, Matthew Christmas argues that the nobility retained their importance as a class and are fundamental to an understanding of the...

Jane Ohlmeyer argues that the English Civil War was just one of an interlocking set of conflicts that encompassed the British Isles in the mid-seventeenth century

Miguel Fernández describes the social conventions that restricted the lives of the upper-class women of 19th-century Havana

How did Britain, though assumed to be bankrupt, pursue an anti-Communist economic war from 1945. Ian Locke examines the case.

Edward Pearce reflects on how clever men have frequently produced the wrong answer to ‘The Irish Question’

Pamela Tudor-Craig recounts a tale of two Emerald Portraits of Christ - one carved on an altarpiece commissioned by James II, the other on a plum stone of Charles I...

Before 1867, Alaska was a Russian fur-trading colony, its values and laws derived from Moscow and, in part, from the European Enlightenment. Ernest Sipes looks at the...

Katherine Ott

Clive Emsley argues that nineteenth-century perceptions owed more to media-generated panic than to criminal realities.

Antony Taylor reveals that Eco-Warriors were active more than a century ago.

When a king from Bechuana visited England in 1890s, he won friends and respect everywhere he went, and his tale cast new light on the interactions between Britain and...

Jayne Rosefield looks at the interaction between the composer and the dictator. Winner of the 1998 Julia Wood Prize.

Denise Silvester-Carr celebrates the reopening of Charleston House to the public.

Dick Geary sums up the latest research into the voting patterns of the German people in the crucial years that brought Hitler to power.

Trevor Fisher reviews a book by Roger Ellis on Victorian England.

Jeremy Black investigates one of the key questions in human history.  

Barry Coward grapples with a question which has become more difficult to answer as a result of recent scholarship. He finds the answer lies in the New Model Army,...

Jeremy Black takes a fresh look at the complex and controversial career of the First Earl of Chatham, the 'great outsider' of Hanoverian Britain.

In examining British politics from 1940 to 1945, Kevin Jefferys explains why the man who was widely perceived as winning the war lost the 1945 election.

The man who brought the French to the aid of the Irish cause in the 1790s has long been an Irish national hero. Andrew Boyd finds his ideals less easy to pin down.

Women as perpetrators of crime, rather than its victims, were figures of especial fascination and loathing in the Victorian popular press. Judith Knelman delves...

Lucien Jenkins reviews a book on 12th century French women.

‘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...

Laura Rodriguez finds that, in spite of the devastating outcome for Spain of the Cuban conflict of 1898, there were some positive consequences.