Volume 40 Issue 11 November 1990

Roy Porter argues that historians must re-examine their purpose, between specialised study and general discovery.

Lawrence James describes how costs and logistics made air power a way of enforcing British policy in the Middle East between the wars.

Merle Ricklefs re-examines the impact of the Dutch in the East Indies and finds in the response of the Javanese a more complex story than that of technological superiority beating down a military-primitive response.

Ann Hills on excavations in the Arctic and displays in the Tromso Museum.

Richard Cavendish on a Great War remembrance group

How history re-enactment is being used to encourage children's interest in the past.

England's answer to Charlemagne, or merely a ruthless king of Mercia? Simon Keynes sifts the evidence for a verdict on the man best known today as the builder of a dyke.

David Kirby discusses how Sweden's sudden rise to prominence in 17th-century Europe provoked much soul-searching both within and without the country on its nature, its culture and its destiny.

Roger Ashley uncovers the story of William Painter and the creative accounting which he employed as a clerk in one of Elizabeth's major spending departments

Peter Keighron and Mike Wayne review the field of historical documentary on television and ask what the future holds for this genre.