History Today

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.

Objects loaded with the history of the Troubles are scattered around Belfast, but sensitivity means the debate about how and where to exhibit them rumbles on, says James Morrison.

John Fox tells the remarkable story of a dynamic Scottish woman who repeatedly risked her life in order to assist and protect Charles I.

Mark Juddery looks at the historical backdrop to the much-loved 1950s Hollywood musical, Singin’ in the Rain in which Hollywood tells its own story of the arrival of sound to the big screen.

In 1959 Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba after a masterly campaign of guerrilla warfare. Drawing on this success, Castro and his followers, including Che Guevara, sought to spread their revolution, as Clive Foss explains.