History Today

In these extracts Arthur Bryant describes the glorious reign of King Alfred, 871-99

Stephen Coleman traces the history of smoking, from its American beginnings to the twentieth century mass market.

Up to the reign of James II, the College of Heralds, besides the part they played on state occasions, had the important duty of regulating the kingdom’s social structure, as Anthony R. Wagner here documents.

The seat of monarchs almost since English monarchy began, Windsor Castle owes its familiar outlines to the architect commissioned by King George IV.

Adam Rovner describes the little-known attempt to create a Zion in the Portuguese colony of Angola.

While it is right to seek justice for those tortured and mistreated during the Kenyan Emergency of the 1950s, attempts to portray the conflict as a Manichean one are far too simplistic, argues Tim Stanley.

Erica Fudge and Richard Thomas explore relationships between people and domestic animals in early modern England and how new types of archaeological evidence are shedding fresh light on one of the most important aspects of life in this period.

A great hoax was born on December 18th, 1912.

As the erotic novel appears to be experiencing a renaissance Julie Peakman reflects on 18th-century appetites for pornography.

Artemis Cooper reflects on Patrick Leigh Fermor’s flexible approach to historical fact.