Historiography

In writing a young person’s history of Britain Patrick Dillon found himself wondering where myth ends and history begins.

As the TV series Ancient Worlds reaches its conclusion, its writer and presenter Richard Miles looks at the challenges of making a historical documentary.

The historian’s desire for certainty is hard to square with the fragility of sources and their constant reworking by the profession. Casting a cold eye on the remaining evidence relating to the deaths of Edward II and Richard II, Ian Mortimer plots a way forward for his discipline.

Emma Christopher analyses the recent treatment of the sensitive issue of slavery and abolition, both by historians and popular culture at large.

J.H. Plumb comments on how the famous historian of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon, sought a detached and truthful past, free from preconception or the idea of inherent purpose.

Nick Poyntz looks at the ways in which the ubiquitous search engine is changing the nature of historical research.

This month Nick Poyntz looks at how to access the wealth of digitised source material now available to historians.

This month Nick Poyntz examines the rapid rise of blogging among both professional historians and amateur enthusiasts.

The acclaimed historian Michael Burleigh talks to Paul Lay about his influences, working methods, the need for historians to engage in public policy and why he is relieved to be free from academic bureaucracy. 

The importance to historians and anthropologists of Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic, ten years after its first publication.