History Today

David Birmingham draws on the private papers of an 18th-century Swiss cheese farmer to recreate a world whose business sophistication and economic arrangements cut across the context of the rustic joys of an Alpine lifestyle.

Geoffrey Clarke on netting the Poll Tax in Hastings.

Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart had a distinguished career as a diplomat, writer and director-general of Churchill's Political Warfare Executive during the Second World War. But as a young diplomat and Acting Consul-General in Moscow, he was caught up in a chain of events that included being head of Britain's first mission to the Bolshevik Government, subsequent involvement in a plot to overthrow them, and imprisonment in the Kremlin - worthy of a novel by Le Carré.

John Crowfoot considers the role flags and anthems have played in defining Soviet and Russian identities, past and present.

Raymond Pearson on history repeating itself and other lessons from the upheavals in Eastern Europe.

Christopher Chippindale talks about hands-on archaeology

Mary Shortt recounts how the Canadian theatre fostered and reflected sentiment for the Mother Country between 1850 and 1940.

Robin Place advocates a key role for prehistory in capturing interest for things historical in school.

Richard Cavendish visits an historic mill in Derbyshire central to the Industrial Revolution.