History Today

The visit of Natsume Sōseki to London at the turn of the 20th century suggested ways of successfully combining western industrialism with ‘Japanese Spirit’.

Franco’s 1939 victory in the Spanish Civil War saw half a million refugees head north to France. They would be followed by many more in a decade of disaster.

A diplomat representing Franco’s Spain and his accomplice, an Italian Fascist, became unlikely saviours of Jews stranded amid the horrors of the Hungarian capital during the Second World War.

In the post-Taliban era, Afghanistan is seeking unifying national heroes from its past. But, as David Loyn explains, agreement on who should be celebrated is hard to reach. 

Attitudes to female sexuality in the 19th century were rigid and unflinching and those who failed to conform were ostracised and persecuted. Victoria Leslie compares how fallen women were portrayed in the arts with the real stories of those who ‘fell’. 

As interesting as counterfactualism may be, we must be careful with its use. Paul Dukes warns against placing undue reliance on what might happen at the expense of what did.  

The 'healer' and friend to Tsar Nicholas II was killed on 17 December 1916.

Winning the vote for women brought new energy to campaigns for social and political equality. Joanne Smith looks at the remarkable flowering of women’s associations in Britain during the 20th century.

The Battle of Culloden, which vanquished Stuart claims to the British throne, is a much mythologised and misunderstood event. What really happened in April 1746?   

The ideas of a French philosopher provided the great Egyptian novelist with a way of assessing the good and the bad in his nation’s past.