History Today

Balance and Military Innovation in 17th-Century Java

Merle Ricklefs re-examines the impact of the Dutch in the East Indies and finds in the response of the Javanese a more complex story than that of technological superiority beating down a military-primitive response.

Changing Faces: Offa, King of Mercia

England's answer to Charlemagne, or merely a ruthless king of Mercia? Simon Keynes sifts the evidence for a verdict on the man best known today as the builder of a dyke.

Imperial Sweden - Image and Self-image

David Kirby discusses how Sweden's sudden rise to prominence in 17th-century Europe provoked much soul-searching both within and without the country on its nature, its culture and its destiny.

Boxed History

Peter Keighron and Mike Wayne review the field of historical documentary on television and ask what the future holds for this genre.

The Expanding Horizons of Christopher Buondelmonti

Hilary Turner unrolls the life and achievements of a fifteenth-century Florentine humanist whose self-taught efforts at acquiring Greek and wandering the Aegean contributed to Renaissance mapmaking and a wider understanding of the classical world.