Looking Back on Mao’s Great Leap Forward
The gradual opening of Chinese archives has revealed the appalling truth about Chairman Mao’s genocidal Great Leap Forward.
History Today
Louis Braille and the Night Writer
Louis Braille’s tactile reading system made literacy for the blind a reality, but he was indebted to an officer in Napoleon’s army.
The Spoils of Battle
Men took up arms for many reasons during the Hundred Years War. In the wake of new research into soldiers’ lives, Nicholas Gribit reveals how the promise of fortune was as big a draw as any.
The True Face of Witchcraft
While 16th- and 17th-century English pamphleteers portrayed those accused of witchcraft as impoverished and elderly, court records suggest that it was just as likely to be powerful women who stood trial.
The BBC Book of War
What role was the BBC to play if the cold war became hot? For the first time, the corporation has given detailed access to its plans for a Wartime Broadcasting Service following a nuclear attack. Paul Reynolds reveals its secrets.
Britain's Forgotten South American Colony
The short-lived colony of Willoughbyland, in what is now Suriname, was both verdant and dangerous. In the end, it was exchanged for New York.
The First Public Historian
The idea of public history, in which academics seek to address a wider audience, is considered to be a modern one, but, discovers Eleanor Parker, a form of it was practised during the Middle Ages.
The Somme: An Exercise in Futility?
The first day of the Somme has become synonymous with incompetent leadership and a callous disregard for human life. Gary Sheffield offers a more complex picture of the battle and the role played by General Sir Douglas Haig.
Democracy: A User's Guide
It comes in many forms and often disappoints, yet democracy has come to be regarded as the most desirable of all political systems. Paul Cartledge offers a guide to its roots in ancient Greece and reminds us of its long absence in the West.
When All Roads Led to Palmyra
The desert city of Palmyra, ravaged recently by ISIS, held a key position on the Silk Route, connecting the Chinese, Persian and Roman Empires. Raoul McLaughlin describes how a remote caravan settlement assumed a leading role in international affairs, generating enormous wealth.