In the February issue of History Today

By Paul Lay | Posted 17th January 2013, 11:54

In the February edition of History Today Jerome Carson and Elizabeth Wakely look at the effects of mental illness on four major historical figures – Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln -- and ask: did their suffering help or hinder their successes and achivements?

Also in this issue:

Jonathan Harris looks at how two formidable enemies, the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate, sought cooperation through their vast trading networks;

George T. Beech examines new theories on how England got its name;

Dan Whitaker tells the extraordinary story of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Germany’s greatest hero of the First World War;

Seth Alexander Thévoz explores the links between Westminster and the great Victorian clubs of London;

Victoria Gardner discusses the history of a free press;

Hugh Bicheno re-assesses an enthusiastic if flawed account of Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, first published in History Today in 1967;