Things, Many and Varied
How the index helps us to understand, categorise and engage with the world.
Historiography
Open Access, Closed Minds
Plans to measure the impact of historical research as if it were a science will mean fewer history books that excite the general reader.
The Nazis Enter History
Will current crises make it possible to study the ‘uniquely evil’ Third Reich as if it were just another period of the past?
Raise Your Words
A classic work of history, now 20 years old, reminds us of the power of continuing education for all.
Make Believe
Historians are tethered to the archive, but sometimes fixing the gaps requires the techniques of a novelist.
Why Study the Past?
History can teach, inspire, warn, include and exclude; its uses change to fit the present moment.
The Lives of Others
To imagine the beliefs and desires of our fellow beings is fundamental to the pursuit of history. Such empathy is needed now more than ever.
What is History?
Four historians consider the most fundamental question of all, one famously posed by E.H. Carr almost 60 years ago.
Worlds Little and Large
Will the pandemic see a boom in local history, or will it spur a desire for global perspectives? Perhaps both.
The Forging of a Communist
The historian Eric Hobsbawm kept faith with the Marxist orthodoxies of his youth even after the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956, of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Why?