History Today

'...And Tomorrow the Whole World'

What would Europe (and Britain) have looked like if Hitler had won the war? Michael Burleigh unveils a fascinating, if chilling panorama of megalomaniac architecture and social engineering.

Canada's Uncle Tom

Penelope Johnston on an early-19th century story of slavery and Canadian multicultural policy

De Ruvigny's Irish Refuge

Embittered Huguenot whose policies went hand in hand with repression of Catholics in William III’s Ireland or enlightened instigator of a unique French enclave which contributed to the 18th-century Ascendancy? In the summer which sees the tercentenary of the Battle of the Boyne, John Stocks Powell looks at the fortunes of Portarlington and its founding father.

Stay-Behind Parties

M.R.D. Foot reveals the plans that were hatched fifty years ago to harry a would-be Nazi occupation of Britain by guerilla warfare.

Fatal Diplomacy, 1541

The murder of two French envoys on the river Po in the summer of 1541 not only provoked a diplomatic whodunnit round the courts of Europe, but also throws light on attitudes to diplomacy in the Renaissance world. Linda and Marsha Frey tell the story and its implications.