History Today

Frederick Hobley remembers his nineteenth-century school and university days.

The British like to think they created modern India, but the firm foundation of the Indian state and the growth of a powerful Indian national identity is no less the achievement of the Indian Congress Party, a fact reflected in the similarities between the Congress flag before independence and the flag of the Republic of India.

The transition of Henry VIII from Renaissance monarch to the Reformation patriarch, supreme head of the Church of England can be charted through the visual images of spectacle and power emanating from the royal court.

P.J. Thorne analyses the symbolism contained within the famed 11th-century embroidered tapestry.

The autobiographies of ordinary men and women are an important, though neglected, source of social history. John Burnett, Professor of Social History at Brunel University, has been collecting and studying these writings, many of them unpublished, for several years. This month and next, History Today is publishing an extract from the section on education in his book, Destiny Obscure.

Paul Kennedy rounds up the historiography of appeasement.

John D. Pelzer explains how the casual gathering of like-minded coffee-drinkers would influence British political and intellectual life for decades.

Philip Pattenden explores the work of Charles Eamer Kempe at Old Place, Sussex.

Rodney Dennys looks at the heraldry of the Falkland Islands.