Gossip or Chronicler? Versailles and Saint-Simon
Michel Petheram assesses the importance and reliability of a courtier whose 'memoires' offer graphic vignettes of the last days of Louis XIV.
History Today
The Fabrication of Louis XIV
Peter Burke looks at how images and the image-makers made the Sun King appear as the larger-than-life 'top ruler' of 17th-century Europe.
Czech Curtains for Mozart
Kenneth Asch on Prague's memento to the great composer
The Fall of the Mighty
Douglas Johnson compares and contrasts the downfalls of Neville Chamberlain and Margaret Thatcher.
A Second Wind From the Third World
John MacKenzie argues there is life yet in Marxist analysis if not in its practice then for examining the process of imperial rule and its transformation.
In the Limelight
The Lime Centre in Hampshire and its practical training in the use of lime.
Peak Achievements
Annette Bingham explores Bronze Age grazing in the Peak District
Lord Mayor's Day in the 1590s
Today it is London's show for the tourists, but in the 1590s the Lord Mayor's show was an opportunity for pomp with circumstance that reveal much of the political and social stresses and strains in Elizabeth's capital, argues Jennifer Harrison.
Europe and 1992 - Fault Lines and Steeples
Max Beloff finds geography, language and religion powerful antidotes to present aspirations of European unity.