History Today

Irene Coltman Brown looks at how the significance of the Peloponnesian war for its historian, Thucydides, was that it demonstrated that imperial power, to be used at all, has to be abused.

In Wales rugby football grew up in the communities of the industrial south. It was imbued with Welsh culture and aspirations, and provided drama for the Welsh people. This article by David Smith celebrates the centenary of the Welsh Rugby Union.

Daylight saving was a logical policy to manipulate the fruits of nature. Yet, as Oliver B. Pollak explains, it was opposed by farmers, trivialised by politicians, and not adopted until the First World War made it imperative to national survival.

In the mid-seventeenth century Spain was at the apogee of artistic and cultural achievement under the patronage of her monarch, Philip IV - but, as R.A. Stradling shows here, she was fighting for survival as a great imperial power.

Stephen Usherwood shows how Lord Mansfield employed his precise legal mind and his reasoned humanitarianism to expose the iniquities of slavery - and thus helped pave the way for its abolition.

Juliet Gardiner continues our Monument series, welcoming the opening of Linley Sambourne’s house in London as one of the few city house museums to show us the habitat of the urban dweller and to satisfy our curiosity about the surroundings of people’s lives in the past.

Geoffrey Parker concludes our two-part feature on Europe's witch-craze.

February, 1981 marks the fifth centenary of the inauguration of the Spanish Inquisition. Over the years many myths and misconceptions have grown up around the Inquisition. These are dispelled in this commemorative essay by Henry Kamen, author of The Spanish Inquisition.

David G. Chandler discusses the logistics of Military History.