History Today

A state in place or a state of mind? Soviet historian Sergei Averintsev considers the claims on universality and divine legitimacy made by the Russia of the Tsars in response to previous legacies of empire.

Akbar Ahmed, one of Pakistan's leading scholars, reflects on the links - past, present and future - of the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.

'I want to be naughty and yet be nice' - John D. Stevens recounts how small-town America fought a losing battle against the louche temptations offered by rnagazines, tabloids and the movies.

Remembering the Arctic postmen - Dorothy Harley Eber gathers memories with photographs of the interaction between Inuit and whalers in North West Canada at the turn of the century.

'Brothels on wheels' thundered the moralists but Peter Ling argues the advent of mass motoring in the 1920s was only one of the changes in social and group relationships that made easier the pursuit of carnal desire.

'For sale, our tyrant King! Five shillings and you can string him up'. Mark Greengrass probes the motives behind and reaction to the murder of France's last Valois monarch.

Ann Hills on the salvation of Undercliffe Cemetery, a Victorian necropolis

Bernard Porter on espionage, past and present.

John Crossland looks at the Dock Strike that succeeded in 1889.