History Today

Was Martin Luther the author of a 'Moderate Reformation'? Or was his progeny to prove a 'Radical Reformation'? An article by Michael Mullett.

Martin Luther, explains Lyndal Roper, summarised his view of sex, marriage and motherhood in a letter he wrote to three nuns in 1524, 'A women does not have complete mastery over herself. God created her body that she should be with a man and bear and raise children'.

At the start of the reign of Charles II, government was the King's business and factions contested for the monarch's ear. The constitutional changes in later Stuart England added a new, parliamentary dimension to faction. But it did not disappear.

'It's no fish ye're buying - it's men's lives', wrote Sir Walter Scott, and looking at the fishing industry in Scotland in the last century involves a vivid recreation of the hard life of the isolated fishing communities, their work and their family life.

1921 was an annus terribilis for the fishing communities of north-east Scotland - and the despair of the fisher folk, explains John Lowe Duthie, led them to religious fervour for consolation.

Ronald Hutton celebrates of the role of imagination in the writing of history.

The Marshall Plan was the response of the United States to the European financial crisis of 1947. As Scott Newton explains here, this crisis threatened to destabilise the continent and, so the Americans feared, hand it to the Russians by destroying post-war European recovery.

Ruth Kastner reveals commemorations through the ages for the 16th-Century Reformer Martin Luther, revealing changing political views since his death.