To export the Revolution's benefits across Europe was the early hope of the French - but the unenthusiastic response from the liberated peoples rapidly soured the vision. Tim Blanning chronicles that descent from optimism to realpolitik.
Objective memoirs or economy with the truth? Michael Jones sifts for an assessment through a courtier's recollections of power politics in fifteenth-century Europe.
Andrew Roach explores the Romanian struggle for nationhood
J.S. Cummins considers the impact of syphilis on the 16th-century world – a tale of rapid spread, guilt, scapegoats and wonder-cures, with an uncomfortable modern resonance.
Douglas Johnson reflects on the life and death of General de Gaulle.
Bartholomew Dias' voyage to the Cape of Good Hope in the late 15th century marked the apex of an extraordinary Portuguese expansion overseas and the start of a fateful European impact on South Africa.
In May of 1588, Spain's great Armada set sail, bent on the invasion and conquest of Elizabethan England. Simon Adams re-examines the strategic considerations that underpinned the actions of both England and Spain before and after the Armada.
70 years ago the massed tank battle of Cambrai ushered in the transformation of the mythology, imagery and practice of conventional land warfare.
Christian king or swashbuckling hero? The immense popularity of King Arthur in medieval romance gave considerable scope for a range of images.
Rebel without a cause? Paul Cartledge probes whether the chequered career of one of fifth-century Athens' most famous sons reveals more about conflicting codes of loyalty than just the machinations of a turncoat.
