History Today

David Starkey provides a historiographical guide to the fifteenth century English monarchy.

To hundreds of thousands of Indians the British Raj was personified by its administrative arm, the Indian Civil Service, explains Ann Ewing, by which the British governed its imperial possession through a small élite spread thinly throughout the vast sub-continent.

The Falkland Islands were at the centre of dispute in 1770 – but was the conflict really over those far-away islands, or was it the political future of the French Secretary of State, Choiseul, that was at stake?

Robert Garland examines the makeup of the Greek symposium.

In the inter-war years, football was a popular sport which drew huge crowds of spectators. The totalitarian regimes of Germany and Italy, argues Peter J. Beck, were not slow to realise the propaganda, potential of their nations' sporting successes – and soon Britain recognised the value of sport to its own national image.

'London is rich in historic buildings and monuments, but behind most familiar landmarks lurk the ghosts of abandoned designs and rejected projects.' In this extract from their book London as it might have been, Felix Barker and Ralph Hyde consider bridges which were planned for the Thames.

Before the coming of industrialisation in Europe, the vast majority of men and women lived in the countryside, working the land, surviving the best they could, evolving a culture and folklore of their own.

In post-reformation England, recusants were punished for their failure to attend Church of England services. The Tichborne family, explains Teresa McLean, was amongst the most intransigent in the country and Chideock Tichborne became a romantic martyr of this opposition.

P. J. Marshall looks at the historiography of 19th European Imperialism.