History Today

Richard Cavendish visits an organisation devoted to the maps and plans of the capital's past.

Ann Hills explores long-term excavations on the ancient Central American civilisation.

Charlemagne may have been the first Holy Roman Emperor but what did he do to dispel the 'Dark Ages'? Mary Alberi looks at the work of his leading court intellectual, Alcuin, and how his hopes for a 'New Athens' in the Aachen palace school promoted the Carolingian Renaissance.

Alexander Kazhdan considers the influence of totalitarianism and meritocracy in the Byzantine empire – and its relationship to the growth of the Russian and other successor states in the East.

Clare Thomson on the pace of change in the Baltic States.

David Thompson on the labour movement and an educational reformer and founder of the WEA.

John Benson on the history of attempting to encourage people into self-employment and entrepreneurship.

Neil Dalton discusses the historic separation of the legal profession

Oswald and Margaret Dilke discuss the work of the cartographer-cum-Crusade-propagandist Marin Sanudo, who used his work to urge on a 14th-century initiative to recover Palestine from the infidel.