History Today

Cartoon historian Mark Bryant examines significant cartoons and caricatures from the history of the genre, in Britain and overseas and from the 18th century until 1945, and tells the fascinating  stories behind them.

Tom Neuhaus looks at the subversive young Germans known as Swing Youth who refused to have their hobbies and tastes dictated to them by the Nazis.

Andrew Cook takes a look at the Duke of Clarence, grandson of Queen Victoria, who is most often remembered as a wastrel who died young, and is sometimes mentioned as a suspect for Jack the Ripper murders.

As preparations are made for Saddam Hussein’s trial in Iraq, Clive Foss examines the precedents for bringing tyrants to justice and finds the process fraught with political complexity.

The famous French author Alexandre Dumas never let fact get in the way of a good story: his ability to spin a yarn made his books instant bestsellers. But, having unravelled the stories behind two of Dumas’ most famous works, Roger Macdonald presents a startling solution as to the true identity of the Man in the Iron Mask.

William D. Rubinstein, co-author of a radical new book on Shakespeare’s true identity, reflects on some riddles of history in the light of his own discoveries.

Edward the Confessor, the last truly Anglo-Saxon king of England, became an embodiment of pacific and idealistic medieval kingship under Henry III. Why?

Mussolini casts a long shadow. R J.B. Bosworth describes how Italians of both the left and the right have used memories of his long dictatorship to underpin their own versions of history and politics.

Simon Adams investigates the political and religious options available to the Catholics of early Jacobean England, and asks why some chose to attempt the spectacular coup in November 1605.

Elizabeth Sparrow unpicks the origins of the long-standing belief that Penzance, in Cornwall, was the first place on the mainland to receive news of the victory at Trafalgar and the death of Nelson.