Bookish Delights
Douglas Johnson, historian of France and HT academic board member, explains how a youthful attraction to libraries opened doors for him.
Douglas Johnson
Exit de Gaulle
Douglas Johnson reconsiders the circumstances in which de Gaulle relinquished his position as President of France and his mythic legacy in French history.
French Historians and the Holocaust
Douglas Johnson on why French historians are still arguing about the Holocaust.
Atolls and Atom Bombs: France's Colonial Design
France's colonies have existed to serve the greatness of France. Johnson examines France's treatment of its various colonies, including French Polynesia, French Indo-China, and Tahiti.
The Fall of the Mighty
Douglas Johnson compares and contrasts the downfalls of Neville Chamberlain and Margaret Thatcher.
Breaking the Ice
Elizabethans in the Arctic
Les Invalides, Paris
Douglas Johnson examines the powerful hold Les Invalides exercises over France's historical mythology.
June 1940
A failure of national will in a decadent country, outgunned, outmanned and divided by class conflict? Douglas Johnson opens our summer series of Second World War reappraisals by looking at the myths and legacies of the fall of France to Hitler's blitzkrieg fifty years ago this month.
Winds of Change
History Today's special issue on the French Revolution's bicentenary focuses on the new ideas that are illustrating its causes and course. To open, Douglas Johnson considers the arguments about the 'Counter-Revolution' and the Terror exercising French historians of the Revolution in 1989.
Barricades of Yesteryear...
Douglas Johnson reflects on the life and death of General de Gaulle.