History Today

The famous French revolutionary was a graduate in medicine from St Andrews University, writes W.J. Fishman, and was once a teacher at a Non-conformist College in Warrington.

The traditions of organized statehood in the countries of French West Africa stretch back for some fifteen centuries. During the past sixty years, writes Basil Davidson, French influence has greatly strengthened the feeling of federal community that inspires many of the newly evolving republics of the Western Sudan and the Guinea coast.

During the war years the English way of life underwent a far-reaching transformation. While shortages reduced the gaiety of existence, women achieved a new freedom, wages rose and labour increased its bargaining power.

The struggle between certainty and doubt is at the heart of history, says Mathew Lyons. It should be relished for what it reveals about a past where facts are sometimes in short supply.

Numerous untruths persist about Gavrilo Princip, the man who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. One of them was used by Austria-Hungary as grounds for its war against Serbia in 1914.

An inherent tension between the past and the present becomes explicit when we make our assessments of historical figures, argues Suzannah Lipscomb.

Andrew Lycett untangles the complex story of how the West’s involvement in Middle Eastern affairs has been interpreted by historians.

A geological discovery in the 1820s, writes A.D. Orange, altered the views of scholars upon the Mosaic story of the Creation and the Flood.

During the aftermath of the French Revolution, writes C.E. Hamshere, a prosperous state arose in Haiti under the leadership of a powerful and gifted ruler.

On November 11th, 1791, George Hammond, the first British Minister to the United States, presented his credentials to George Washington. Despite favourable auguries, writes Leslie Reade, his was to prove “a stormy and frustrating mission.”