History Today

The son of a Norman Marcher lord and a Welsh princess, J.J.N. McGurk writes, ‘Giraldus Cambrensis’ was a brilliant recorder of British life in the twelfth century.

Roger Pilkington describes how the Swedish poet, historian and philosopher, Erik Gustaf Geijer, made a tour of England when acting as a private tutor.

For a few years an impoverished barrister became one of the most effective orators and journalists of the French Revolution, writes John Hartcup.

David Lunn explains how, on his death-bed, King Charles II received the sacraments from a priest he had first met some thirty-four years earlier, and at length made his submission to the Roman Catholic Church.

Robert Woodall describes how twenty-nine years of public controversy preceded the political emancipation of British Jews.

Joanna Richardson relates how, as Préfet de la Seine from 1853 until 1870, Haussmann superintended the rebuilding and enlargement of Paris.

Michael Cooper recalls how Vivero y Velasco, a Spanish administrator, composed an excellent account of Japan and its rulers after his unintended visit.

Scholar, humanist, aristocrat, Barbaro achieved distinction in many fields, and served the Venetian Republic well, as Alan Haynes records.

Allen Cabaniss revisists a war between the French and American Indians.

A modern-day environmental problem puts Charles II in a bit of bother in this cartoon by Rob Murray.

The story of a remarkable First World War soldier.

A gallery of images from the recently-reopened Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Niall Ferguson's suggestion that John Maynard Keynes was concerned only with the present doesn't stand up to scrutiny, argues  Paul Lay.