History Today

Born near Leeds, a builder of bridges, canals and an inventor of mechanical equipment, George John Smeaton was an eminent forerunner of his profession.

After the sack of Rome by the Goths in the year 410, the Roman world experienced some of the unease that afflicts Western civilization today; S.G.F. Brandon describes how the late Roman world found assuagement in the writings of Saint Augustine.

Overshadowed by the reputation of his brilliant elder brother, Robert Sidney “was not one of the flamboyant Elizabethans,” but a capable soldier and an industrious administrator.

A characteristic product of eighteenth-century liberalism, the twenty-eight volumes of French Encyclopedia are here reviewed and reassessed by John Lough.

Anthony Bryer describes how, from 1453 to 1923 the dream of a recaptured Byzantium and a resurrected Byzantine Empire continued to haunt the Greek imagination.

J.L. Kirby describes how, early in the fifteenth century, King Henry IV of England ordered three trusted servants to conduct delicate negotiations with the rich cities of the Hanseatic League, whence England imported such precious commodities as dried fish, furs, tar and timber.

During the Wars of the Barons in the reign of Henry III, writes Margaret Wade Labarge, everyday life and tastes are recorded in the household rolls of Eleanor de Montfort.

From the mid-sixteenth century onwards, Japanese feudal lords competed with one another in the construction of massive and imposing castles. Today many of them have been lovingly restored.

Zwingli’s influence on Protestantism in England and the Netherlands was profound and lasting; G.R. Potter profiles the Swiss Reformer and his social background.

Nancy Mitford describes how the King himself, Racine, Bossuet and Fenelon all became involved in the stormy history of St. Cyr.