History Today

It is the responsibility of parents and politicians to define and pass on a nation's values and identity, argues Tim Stanley. Historians and teachers of history should be left alone to get on with their work.

Since the end of the Cold War there has been a marked increase in accounts of the past made by those considered to have been on the ‘losing side’ of history. But, warns Jeremy Black, we should all be wary of the forces such histories can unleash.

A class confrontation at the Epsom Derby of 1920.

Anne Sebba revisits Michael Bloch’s article, first published in History Today in 1979, on the historian Philip Guedalla’s enthusiastic but misguided support for his friend, Edward VIII.

At its height, the British Empire was the largest the world has ever known. Its history is central to Britain’s history, yet, as Zoë Laidlaw shows, this imperial past is not an easy narrative to construct.

The leading Victorian radical and Liberal politician John Bright was born on November 16th 1811.

Clovis I died in Paris on November 27th 511, aged 46.

The first performance of The Tempest on record was at court on All Hallows’ Day, on 1 November 1611.

Michael Bentley looks at the father of British historiography who was an eloquent and controversial opponent of teleology.

To mark the 400th anniversary of his birth, UNESCO has declared Evliya Çelebi a ‘man of the year’. His Seyahatname, or Book of Travels, is one of the world’s great works of literature. Caroline Finkel celebrates a figure little known in the West.