History Today

Plekhanov refused to accept that Lenin's coup in October 1917 was a Marxist revolution. To him it was an anti-Marxist revolution that violated history's economic laws. By Irene Coltman Brown.

James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, is best remembered, according to Esmond Wright, for his personal integrity and the scholarly application which he brought to constitutional questions in which he collaborated with Thomas Jefferson.

Maggie Black completes her history of the year in food, with a look at the history of a festive favourite

A hundred years ago this month the Smoke Abatement Exhibition was held in London. In this article, John Ranlett explains how the exhibition demonstrated the practicality of smoke control equipment and how a century later the efficacy of this can be observed in the city streets.

A review of the origins of the Labour Party.

D.G. Chandler continues our series, looking at the relevance of military history in contemporary training for the armed forces.

Steven Huebner on the attempts to stage Richard Wagner's works in Paris between the 1870s and 1891.

In the years following their seizure of the West Indian Island of Martinique from the French, the British had the task of maintaining internal order and restoring the island's prosperity before handing their protectorate back to Napoleon's envoy.

'A people's prospects are affected by its image of its past' - Arnold Toynbee presents an exclusive extract from his book on the Greek sense of the past, The Greeks and Their Heritages.

November 5th had traditionally provided an outlet for the expression of popular attitudes towards religion in the city of Exeter. In this article Roger Swift examines the particular fervour of the celebrations during the Victorian period despite efforts by the authorities to control them.