History Today

Robert, Lord Clive and India

Between 1744 and 1767, the eldest son of a small Shropshire squire laid the foundations of what was to become the British Indian Empire. By Percival Spear.

Morocco: Lyautey and After

C.H. Brown studies French imperial achievement in Morocco during the first half of the 20th century, as well as the nationalism with which it eventually came into conflict.

Madame de Pompadour's Staircase

Nancy Mitford describes how Louis XV never talked politics out of the Council Chamber. Hunting was his only distraction until Madame de Pompadour introduced him to “plans and designs ... bibelots and stuffs ... gaiety and lightness.”

The Rhineland Republic: Part II

Julian Piggott, former British Commissioner in Cologne, tells the story, as he witnessed it, of the French attempt in 1923 to create a buffer state on their eastern frontier. The first part of this articles can be found here.

Mary Kingsley

C. Howard introduces Mary Kingsley: the devoted daughter amd energetic middle-class housekeeper who had become a distinguished explorer by the age of thirty-five. More than any other publicist of the 1890’s, she helped to make Englishmen aware of their responsibilities on the African continent.

The Personality of Pio Nono

E.E.Y. Hales profiles Pope Pius IX (1846-78), who saw the end of the Papacy as a temporal power as the opening of a new era in its world-relationships.