History Today

The rebuilding of London required an image of what had been lost. Kate Wiles shares one such survey from 1669.

The epic German offensive to take the strategically crucial fortress in north-east France reached its bloody end in September 1916. Robert Foley looks at how and why Erich von Falkenhayn, the Chief of the German General Staff, sought to break the deadlock on the Western Front.

As the holders of both our cultural and personal memories, books seem sacred and their destruction, no matter the cause, is always shocking.

The Booker Prize-winning writer eschewed autobiographical novels for historical fiction in a bid to resolve the porous distinction between objective and subjective history, writes Alexander Lee.

Since gaining independence Botswana’s history has not been without turmoil, but the country has emerged as a model African state.

The photographer, designer and aesthete Cecil Beaton brought a distinctly historical awareness to the realm of fashion.

South-East Asia’s ‘Golden Triangle’ dominated the world’s opium production during the 1980s. David Hutt reveals how a young soldier from north Burma took on the United States government to become the region’s most notorious drug lord.

The ‘middle Medici’ – two popes, two dukes, two bastards and a future queen of France – are too often left out of the dynasty’s history. Catherine Fletcher addresses that gap.

Hidden beneath a hill in Cholula, Mexico lies the biggest pyramid ever built.

Archives are one thing, the public another and connecting the two is one of a historian’s hardest challenges, as Suzannah Lipscomb knows from experience.