History Today

John Black considers how the Victorians got away from privatising prisons.

Brian Brivati looks at the last time 'modernising' the Labour Party and its union links caused controversy.

Klaus Larres evaluates the track record of previous attempts at a 'New World Order.'

Richard Cavendish looks at the Bayeux Tapestry in Reading's newly refurbished museum.

Richard Cavendish visits the society dedicated to the tragic Great War poet.

Rachel Braverman on a shocking American realist.

The elaborate funeral portraits of Poland's 17th-century nobility are a window on their self-image and lifestyle, as Bozena Grabowska discusses here. (Translated from the Polish by George Lambor).

Tom August explores the imperial assumptions - and the hints of independence from Britannia - to be found in the paintings and artists on show in the Palace of Arts at the British Empire Exhibition.

Did Andres Aranda Ortiz die for his crimes or his anarchist beliefs in a Barcelona prison just before Christmas 1934? Chris Ealham considers an episode that lays bare the social and political tensions of a Spain on the eve of civil war.

Keith Hopkins takes us on a tour de force via original texts of the hopes, dreams, assumptions and frustrations of the Roman schoolboy.