History Today

Lawrence Freedman describes how he came to write the official history of the Falklands campaign and tells us what he learned from the experience.

Tim Harris explores the political spin, intolerance and repression that underlay Charles II’s relaxed image, and which led him into a deep crisis in 1678-81 yet also enabled him to survive it.

Richard Cavendish explains how Archbishop Scrope and Thomas Mowbray were executed on June 8th, 1405.

A rebellion erupted on the Russian battleship Potemkin on 14 June 1905.

Murray Watson looks at the historical roots of a phenomenon few commentators have noted: the sizeable English presence in Scotland.

Jonathan Marwil describes the eye-opening experience of three young Americans who went to report from the battlefields of the Italian War of Independence.

Stella Tillyard asks what fame meant to individuals and the wider public of  Georgian England, and considers how much this has in common with today’s celebrity culture.

Roland Quinault examines the career, speeches and writings of Churchill for evidence as to whether or not he was racist and patronizing to black peoples.

Donald Zec has written the life of his brother, the wartime political cartoonist Philip Zec, to remind the world of his rich collection of cartoons that caught the mood of the British people at war. The following is an extract from the book.

Stuart Burch considers the significance to Norway – both in terms of the past and the present – of the anniversary of 1905, when the country at last won its independence from Sweden.