The messages sent by British soldiers of the First World War to their loved ones back home have long been valued for what they tell us about daily life in the trenches. But their authors were often at pains not to reveal too much of the horror they endured. Anthony Fletcher considers what these documents reveal about the men’s inner lives.
Michael Scott looks at how a time of crisis in the fourth century BC proved a dynamic moment of change for women in the Greek world.
Chris Corin exposes the huge apparatus created by Tsarist Russia to combat the threat of revolution.
Andrew Boxer traces the assimilation policies, indigenous rights, and the changing relationship between the US government and Native Americans.
The repatriation of British soldiers’ bodies from Afghanistan goes against a long tradition of burying the war dead in some foreign field and brings the conflict closer to home, writes Nick Hewitt.
A contemporary account of life in Restoration London and Oxford by William Taswell, spanning the years 1660 until circa 1675. Includes personal obervations of the Plague and the Great Fire. Originally featured in the December 1977 issue of History Today.
The air of London in the seventeenth century was polluted by clouds of sea-coal smoke against which Evelyn proposed some drastic remedies. By Steven R. Smith
Patricia Fara recounts the moving story of a gifted contemporary of Isaac Newton who came to symbolise the frustrations of generations of female scientists denied the chance to fulfil their talents.
John Etty questions whether Serb nationalism was an irresistible force that helped unleash the First World War.
David Hipshon regrets the degree to which our history syllabuses have censored the roles of British heroes.
