History Today

French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was a hero to Beethoven, inspiring a revolutionary symphony. But disillusionment was soon to follow.

Behind the dominating presence of Frankenstein, the richness of Mary Shelley’s life is in danger of being lost.

Marcus Junius Brutus, the man who conspired to kill Julius Caesar, was not quite the friend to his fellow Romans that the legend suggests.

Henri Pirenne transformed the way historians think about the end of the Classical world and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

The myths that surround the ultimately tragic rule of Charles I mask the realities of a courageous and uxorious king who fell foul of a bitter struggle between two sides of English Protestantism.

The Phoenicians were the great maritime traders of the ancient Mediterranean.

A lack of historical knowledge is easily exploited in the fractious world of social media.

During the Second World War, Britain and the Soviet Union worked together in oil-rich Iran. Cooperation was to degenerate into suspicion at the dawn of the Cold War. 

In the fashionable female circles of 18th-century Paris, a physician who recommended fresh air, exercise and looser corsets became a celebrated figure.

A vast biography of General Grant questions received opinions, while a new edition of his memoirs confirms their historic status.