History Today

Few who met Napoleon Bonaparte failed to find him fascinating as well as formidable. Felix Markham portrays the Emperor as his Marshals, Ministers, servants and family saw him at the height of his power. 

J.C. Barry looks at how the Thirty-Nine Articles, defining the doctrine of the Church of England, were drawn up by a Convocation that met in London in the 16th century.

Norman Stone introduces Von Hötzendorf, the last in a long line of Austrian commanders, and not the least able, who had the misfortune to believe that the First World War would save the Empire from disintegration.

S.G.F. Brandon suggests the influence of the idea of the Devil in Christian culture has been profound, inspiring both noble works of art and the most degrading superstitions.

Tudor Edwards introduces the Second-Empire architect who was at once a fanatical restorer in the Gothic style and a daring speculator in new architectural thought.

By the close of the fourteenth century the English system of surnames had come into general use, many of them deriving from the trades and crafts followed by their bearers.

Alistair Horne describes how, during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, a fleet of balloons and a host of carrier pigeons kept the capital in touch with the outside world.

J.P. Kenyon describes how, in 1688, there were weighty reasons to suppose that the new royal heir was a changeling, smuggled to the Palace in a warming pan.

Half a century after the drama of Verdun, Alistair Horne describes the Paris meeting of two of the battle heroes, Eugen Radtke and Gustave Durassie.

Alan Birch visits mid-nineteenth century Sydney, a city formally incorporated in 1842 after fifty-four years of rapid and dramatic development.