History Today

Scottish Castles: Towers of Power

The castles of Scotland are tangible evidence of the country’s evolution from violent feudalism towards a more settled and centralised nation state. David C. Weinczok explores a land of hill forts, towerhouses and châteaux. 

Léon Blum’s Republic of Broken Dreams

French history since the revolution has been marked by promises of progress that end in bitter failure. The election of Léon Blum’s Popular Front in 1936 was one such example.

Of Saints and Kings

Walatta Petros was a woman feared even by kings. Wendy Laura Belcher tells the story of the Ethiopian saint, her relationships with centuries of monarchs and the stories of the miracles she performed.

‘We need a Faith’: E. H. Carr, 1892-1982

How the collapse of the world he knew and loved in 1914 later made the promising young scholar and diplomat into one of the most extraordinary and controversial historians of our time.

The Permanent Stain of the Somme

Since the early 1960s, historians have shone a more positive light on the Battle of the Somme. But we must not forget the excesses and failures of that terrible campaign.  

The Codex Amiatinus: Britain's Lost Treasure

One of the grandest, certainly one of the largest, manuscripts produced in the medieval West, the Codex Amiatinus is often overlooked as an Anglo-Saxon treasure. Conor O’Brien shows how its makers used it to assert their identity and to establish their place firmly within the Christian world.