History Today

Miyamoto Musashi was finally defeated on 13 June 1645, but it wasn’t a sword that laid the formidable samurai low.

Could a text thought to be by Shakespeare’s father actually be his sister’s writing?

Approaching history through ideas – how people thought – is not the only method, but it is one that has stood the test of time.

In Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans: The British Occupation of Germany, 1945-49, Daniel Cowling brings lost stories to light – some of them, at least.

On 8 June 1949, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. His final novel, its themes had been present throughout his literary career.

Sarah Wise’s The Undesirables: The Law that Locked Away a Generation lays bare the cruelty and injustice of the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913.

A tour of Europe cemented Ronald Reagan’s reputation as an international statesman and helped secure his re-election.

In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East Barnaby Rogerson seeks geopolitical answers for ideological conflicts.

History is built with words. How have historians filled the silence that came before?

Age of Wolf and Wind: Voyages through the Viking World by Davide Zori proves that if you want to understand the Vikings, you need to rove just as far.