History Today

Obstetrical forceps, designed by the Chamberlen family in the 1600s. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.

Doctor Chamberlen’s Forceps

Childbirth in the early modern period was a battleground between midwives and surgeons. The Chamberlen family of surgeons sought to reform the system with a revolutionary new tool: the forceps.

Public Characters, at the centre are rivals Charles James Fox (Whig) and William Pitt the Younger (Tory), along with prominent Whigs George Tierney and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Thomas Rowlandson, 1801. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.

‘The Rage of Party’ by George Owers review

They go low, we go lower. The Rage of Party: How Whig Versus Tory Made Modern Britain by George Owers offers up the origins of Britain’s fractious political culture.

Titlepage to Athanasius Kircher’s China illustrata, 1667. Public Domain.

Written in the Stars: How Old is China?

Chinese astronomers and the European Jesuits who worked alongside them found evidence of China’s antiquity in the heavens. Others were sceptical: how old was China really?

A Witches’ Sabbath, Cornelis Saftleven, c.1650. Art Institute of Chicago. Public Domain.

On the Spot: Mary Beth Norton

‘What historical topic have I changed my mind on? That the Indian war then occurring to the north of Salem was crucial to the expansion and perpetuation of the witchcraft crisis.’

‘Representation of an Insurrection on board a Slave-Ship’, by Carl Bernhard Wadström, 1794. Beinecke Library, Yale University. Public Domain.

Slavery After Abolition: Revolt on the Amelia

The slave trade was an international criminal enterprise. In 1811 an uprising on the slaving ship Amelia off the coast of West Africa revealed a complex network spanning four continents.

Æthelstan gives away his sister, St Editha to Sigtrid, king of Northbria, watercolour byThomas Mattews Rooke after a stained glass window by Ford Madox Brown, 1909. Birmingham Museums Trust/Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Public Domain.

‘The First King of England’ by David Woodman review

The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom by David Woodman looks beyond the empty tomb to find perhaps the most consequential monarch of the Anglo-Saxon age.

Zoroaster, 19th-century Indian illustration. Heritage Images/TopFoto.

Zoroastrians in the Great Game

In the early 1900s the small but influential Zoroastrian community in India contemplated establishing a colony in Iran. Could the Parsis rely on British support?

Scene showing communion (left) and excommunication (right) from the Decretales of Giovanni d’Andrea, 13th century. Luisa Ricciarini/Bridgeman Images.

Get Out: Excommunicated in Medieval England

In 13th-century England excommunication was akin to spiritual leprosy. How did it work?

‘A Bit of War History: The Veteran’, Thomas Waterman Wood, 1866. Metropolitan Museum of Arts. Public Domain.

‘The Strange and Tragic Wounds of George Cole’s America’ review

In The Strange and Tragic Wounds of George Cole’s America: A Tale of Manhood, Sex, and Ambition in the Civil War Era, Michael deGruccio discovers a generation betrayed by the fight for freedom.

Passers-by looking at a modern sculpture in the window of a Wimpy Bar in London, c.1961. Photograph by John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins. © Estate of John Hopkins.

Wimpy vs McDonald’s: The Battle of the Burgers

In the 1970s and 1980s Wimpy faced off with McDonald’s in a battle over what it meant to eat British.