History Today

George Woodcock describes how British and French officials jointly presided over the chain of Melanesian islands oddly named by Captain Cook after the Scottish west coast.

Rex Winsbury describes how, for two and a half years during the Russian Civil War, Trotsky’s headquarters were his mobile train.

J.P. Harthan describes The Salisbury Book of Hours; compiled in Rouen about 1425, the prayer-book owes its name to one of the best English commanders in France.

Stephen Clissold describes a world of Christian slaves and Moslem masters in North Africa, from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries.

Kenneth Johnstone traces Romania's development, from the Crimean War to independence and enlargement.

Philip E. Burnham Jr. describes how the court of Clement VI at Avignon became a model of humanism and scholarship for princely courts elsewhere in Europe.

Alan Haynes describes how, menaced by the Turks, the Emperor Manuel sought western help on his visits to Italy, France and England.

Joanna Richardson describes how the volumes of the Goncourts Journal record the intelligent scene in late nineteenth-century France.

Geoffrey Treasure describes how, at the height of the monarchy’s crisis in 1648-9, the Court party made mistakes that were fortunately matched by the follies of their opponents.

Geoffrey Treasure describes how a seventeenth century conflict between the French Crown and Parlement represented a protest against the increasing absolutism of royal Ministers.