History Today

Coalition governments became common in 18th-century Britain, but tended to fail at times of crisis. Jeremy Black draws some parallels with the present day.

Maurice Keen chronicles a set of 15th century letters - the product of everyday communication between English gentry and officialdom - and suggests how their contents may change the reader's views of the late middle ages. Helen Castor offered her own contemporary historiographical account in 2010.

Miri Rubin explores the medieval galleries at the V&A and the British Museum.

Archie Brown discusses the contributions of historians to the understanding of Communism and why it failed.

Leo Hollis visits the History Today archive to find an appreciation of Christopher Wren, written by a kindred spirit at a time when both sides of Wren’s genius – the scientist and the artist – were rarely explored.

Harold F. Hutchison introduces the son of royalist gentry, an Oxford graduate, a Professor of Astronomy, a mathematician, and the most distinguished architect that Britain has produced. Leo Hollis added a historiographical postscript in 2010.

Before the First World War, Irish Unionists and Nationalists were poised to fight each other over the imposition of Home Rule by the British. Then, remarkably, they fought and died side by side, writes Richard S. Grayson.

The teaching of history should give students a broad knowledge of their subject rather than focus on the skills needed to analyse narrow periods, says Seán Lang.