Tag Archives: History Today

History, Magazines, Politics, Reviews

History Today Magazine – September 2025 Preview

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HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘The Greek World At War’….

The Ancient Greek World at War

For the ancient Greeks, the Peloponnesian War was a conflict involving the entire world. For Thucydides, it was a lesson in the realities of human nature. Robin Waterfield

Afghanistan 1919: Facing the Wasps’ Nest

Against the odds, the Third Anglo-Afghan War led to Afghanistan’s independence from the British Empire. Heather Campbell

‘The Invention of the Eastern Question’ by Ozan Ozavcı review

The Invention of the Eastern Question: Sir Robert Liston and Ottoman Diplomacy in the Age of Revolutions by Ozan Ozavcı offers the ‘sick man of Europe’ a second opinion.

History, Magazines, Politics, Reviews

History Today Magazine – May 2025 Preview

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History Today | The World's Leading Serious History Magazine

HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE (April 24, 2025): The latest issue features ‘The Fall of Saigon’ …

The Fall of Saigon

The Vietnam War effectively ended on 30 April 1975 with the arrival of the North Vietnamese army in Saigon. Thousands fled the city, but many more were left behind.

VE Day: The Quiet After the Peace

When VE Day finally came in May 1945 it was met with relief, exhaustion, and cynicism. Was the Second World War really over?

Stalin’s Man in Belgrade

Teodoro Castro or Iosif Grigulevich? Costa Rica’s ambassador to Yugoslavia was a Soviet spy sent to kill Tito.

Sex Workers and Salvation in the Renaissance

Renaissance Florence had a problem: it wanted female sex workers, but it also needed to offer them a way out. The solution was a new brothel district – and a nunnery for former prostitutes

History, Magazines, Reviews

History Today Magazine – April 2025 Preview

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HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE (March 25, 2025): The latest issue features ‘The Lost World of Ancient Assyria’ – The Library of Ashurbanipal, the African king at Edward VII’s coronation, the origins of India’s Brahmins, British witnesses to Buchenwald, spinning James I’s succession, and more.

The Library of Ashurbanipal

When it was discovered in the 19th century, the Library of Ashurbanipal revealed an ancient Assyrian empire previously known only through myth.

Bloody Mary and the Missing Heir

A male heir might have saved Queen Mary’s reign, and changed the shape of global Catholicism for good.

Vietdamned’ by Clive Webb review

Can Vietdamned: How the World’s Greatest Minds Put America on Trial by Clive Webb rescue Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre’s activism from irrelevance?

History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

History Today Magazine – August 2024 Preview

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History Today (July 18, 2024) – The latest issue features ‘The Ethiopians who changed Rome’…

August 2024

A Dangerous Game on the Jacobean Stage

Original title page for A Game at Chess, 1624. Folger Shakespeare Library. Public Domain.

For nine days Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess was the greatest box office phenomenon of the English Renaissance. Then a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Japan, the West and the Treaty of Versailles

Japanese delegates to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919. Standing (left to right): Hikokichi Ijūin and Keishirō Matsui; seated (left to right): Baron Makino Nobuaki, Prince Kinmochi Saionji and Viscount Sutemi Chinda. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

At the outset of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Japan enjoyed a seat at the top table, but the vexed issue of racial equality set it and its notional Western allies on different paths.

History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

History Today Magazine – February 2024 Preview

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History Today (January 30, 2024) – The latest issue features ‘The Search For The Buddha’; ‘Blood and Sand’ – The Cold War in North Africa; All In The MInd – A history of phantom pain, and more…

A History of Phantom Pain

A lecture on the nervous system, by C. Bethmont, c.1860. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.

For centuries, scientists and philosophers used phantom limbs to unravel the secrets of the human mind. While we know phantom pain exists, we still don’t know why.

‘American Journey’ by Wes Davis review

Henry Ford fishing, with Harvey Firestone, George Christian and Thomas Edison, C. 1920. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

American Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs by Wes Davis falls short of examining the consequences that followed the wanderlust.

The Search for the Historical Buddha

The Buddha seated cross legged on a lotus throne, surrounded by scenes from his life. Tibet, 18th century. Photograph © 2023 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All rights reserved. / Denman Waldo Ross Collection / Bridgeman Images.

Arriving in the West in the 19th century, the Buddha of legend was stripped of supernatural myth and recast as a historical figure. What do we really know about him?

‘Judgement at Tokyo’ by Gary J. Bass review

International Military Tribunal for the Far East judges on the bench, 3 March 1947. UVA LAW Special Collections (CC BY 4.0).

Pacy and even-handed, Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass is unlikely to be bettered as a portrait of the Tokyo trials.

History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

History Today Magazine – January 2024 Preview

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History Today (December 21, 2023) – The latest issue features ‘The KGB – Russia After Stalin’; An Uyghur Chieftain in China’s Civil War; Preston’s Banana Boat Stowaways; ‘The End of Enlightenment’ by Richard Whatmore review, and more…

The KGB After Stalin

The arrest of Aleksandr Podrebinek by plainclothes KGB men during a Baptist prayer meeting in April 1977. Smith Archive/Alamy Stock Photo.

In 1954 a new agency was founded: the KGB. While less violent and arbitrary than what it replaced, its insidious reach soon permeated Soviet society.

‘The End of Enlightenment’ by Richard Whatmore review

’A Contest between Oppression and Reason, On the Best Way of Settleing Debates‘ by William O'Keefe, c. 1795. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. Public Domain.

Richard Whatmore’s The End of Enlightenment: Empire, Commerce, Crisis takes the ideals of the 18th century on their terms.

Arts & Literature, Books, History, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Preview: History Today Magazine – April 2023

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HISTORY TODAY MAGAZINE – APRIL 2023 ISSUE

The First Folio

Shakespeare’s First Folio in the library of Durham University, 1950s.
Shakespeare’s First Folio in the library of Durham University, 1950s.

The stage has a short memory, print a long one: 400 years since its first publication, Shakespeare’s First Folio is the reason we remember him.

American Moppets

Teleradiola "Belarus-5" in an ordinary Soviet house.
 ‘The ‘Belarus-5’ in an ordinary Soviet house,’ photographed in the 1960s. 

Americanised globalisation and the new world of Russian business in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, a version of the satirical puppet show Spitting Image arrived on Russian television. A Muscovite once told the story of his father, who took great care to record every episode on VHS.

Historical, History, Magazines, Politics, Previews, Reviews

Previews: History Today Magazine – January 2023

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History Today Magazine – January 2023 issue:

The Cold, Cold War

Throughout the 19th century, rival nations battled to conquer the poles. One explorer set out to establish an Arctic colony – or to get rich trying.

Roses are Red?

The Wars of the Roses saw some of the bloodiest months in English history, but winning on the battlefield did not necessarily mean winning the war.

History, Magazines, Photography, Previews, Reviews

Preview: History Today Magazine – December 2022

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December issue

Inside December 2022 issue:

Age of Doubt: Saints and Sceptics

The medieval period was a golden age of saints and miracles, but they were met with a healthy dose of scepticism.

‘A Baptism of Blood’

Fighting for the Union in the US Civil War, Welsh soldiers discovered that the cost of assimilation was the loss of their native language.

Renaissance Wonder Women

To Renaissance audiences, the mythical Amazons were exotic, mysterious and revealed hidden truths about their own society.

History, Magazines, Previews, Stories

Previews: History Today Magazine – September 2022

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September 2022

The Original Rock Star

200 years on from the deciphering of the most famous piece of rock in the world, what does reading the Rosetta Stone reveal?