Today’s featured articles
Scotland’s short-lived, catastrophic Central American colony exposed its precarious relationship with England. Was closer union an inevitable result?
How did Western Europe learn of the fall of Constantinople, the loss of Negroponte, and the Ottoman defeat at Lepanto? In the early modern era all news was slow news.
As the Battle of Britain raged overhead, the nation’s women were urged to salvage metal for the war effort. But was it just propaganda?
Most recent
‘I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer’ by Mary Beth North review
‘I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer’: Letters on Love and Marriage from the World’s First Personal Advice Column by Mary Beth Norton reveals the 17th-century origins of the agony aunt.
God’s Machines: Descartes and Nature
How should we see the natural world? For Descartes it was a mechanism, but a wondrous one.
‘Saudi Arabia: A Modern History’ by David Commins review
How did a Gulf backwater become a global powerbroker? Saudi Arabia: A Modern History by David Commins explores the uneasy alliance between oil, autocracy, and Wahhabism.
The Battle for Britain’s First Book of the Month Club
Britain’s first book-of-the-month club – the Book Society – brought reading to a vast new audience. But not without some controversy.
‘Language and Social Relations in Early Modern England’ by Hillary Taylor review
In Language and Social Relations in Early Modern England Hillary Taylor listens in the archives for the voices of ordinary people.
Swahili on the Road
How did Swahili become an East African lingua franca? It was not by accident.
The Death of the Great Barnato
On 5 July 1852 the curtain was raised on Barney Barnato, one of the richest men in South Africa.
Plato’s Last Word to Dionysius
How to reform an ancient Greek tyrant? Plato’s final advice to Dionysius the Younger was not well received.
Current issue
- Image
In the July issue:
The Java War, Mein Kampf and the German people, the survival of Europe’s pagans, the speed of early modern news, Italian emigrants in the First World War, and more.
Plus: reviews, opinion, crossword and much more!
You can buy this issue from our website, from newsstands across the UK, or read it as a digital edition via the History Today App.