History Today

At the end of the First World War a British force under Major-General Lionel Dunsterville launched a daring campaign to cut off Ottoman oil supplies at Baku.

What makes a state? Is it its people, its borders, its government, or does it rest on recognition from international powers? Across the 19th and 20th centuries, the process by which states have been created and recognised has taken many forms.

Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s by Thant Myint-U captures the optimism and ambition of Burma’s bridge between worlds.

For most of the late 16th and early 17th century, theatre companies touring England were welcomed in provincial towns. But as tastes changed, players found themselves take second billing to moral concerns.

‘What is the most common misconception about my field? That “anarchic” and “fanatical” Poland was partitioned by its more “enlightened”, “tolerant” absolutist neighbours.’

The kings of medieval France were fascinated by the Mongols, who they saw as great empire builders. Eager to learn more, they amassed a huge archive of knowledge about them

The climate crisis is a hot topic, but what does it mean to study the history of our relationship with the natural world?

Parliament’s champion of the people or scandalous, self-serving politician? Georgian radical John Wilkes kept a foot in both camps.

On 16 October 1930 Britain’s sense of its historical greatness was skewered with the release of 1066 and All That.

The dismissal of a government scientist over the unproven battery additive AD-X2 galvanised the American scientific community in the 1950s.