History Today

Historian's Yardstick

'Measure twice because you can cut only once', is a carpenter's adage making the rounds of American history departments in the wake of the case of David Abraham.

Looking Backwards

History may ultimately be story-telling, but one moral that's lost on most historians is that every picture tells a story, says Roy Porter.

Churchill as Home Secretary

Accounts of Winston Churchill's conduct of this office in 1910-11 generally underline those incidents of public disorder rioting coal miners in Tonypandy; besieged revolutionaries in Sidney Street. Victor Bailey asserts they reveal Churchill as an illiberal, sabre-rattler, eager for armed conflict between soldiers and workers.

Anne Frank, Forty Years On

On 4th April 1944, Anne Frank wrote, 'I want to go on living even after my death!' Four months later, she and her family left for a concentration camp after capture by the Gestapo, and she died from typhus at Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, aged fifteen years.

Churchill as Chronicler: The Narvik Episode 1940

In his actions and writings, Churchill made General Mackesy the scapegoat for the allied failure to recapture Norway in 1940. Was this a fair assessment? And why did Churchill pursue the cause with such bitterness? Mackesy's son explains.