History Today

Feargus O’Connor: Irishman and Chartist

Donald Read describes how, during the 1830s and 1840s an Irishman, claiming royal descent, became the hero of British working men in the Chartist campaign for universal suffrage and equal Parliamentary representation.

Confrontation in Central Asia, 1885

Raymond A. Mohl describs how the nineteenth century history of Anglo-Russian conflict in Central Asia is marked by gradual Russian advances and gradual British retreats.

The Tragedy of Success

In the cynical atmosphere of the Congress of Vienna, Consalvi imposed himself on his fellow statesmen and fought a successful battle for the restoration of the Papal States. E.E.Y. Hales describes a master of European diplomacy.

Builders of Trans-Siberian Railway

The first sod of the longest railway on earth was turned by the last of the Tsars in 1891; Hilda Hookham describes an epic process of construction, with the line finally completed in 1904.

Britain and France in North America

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, writes Louis C. Kleber, the British came to America largely as settlers; the French as explorers and fortune-seekers.

Botany and the Americas

William Gardener investigates the history of American flora and finds among its contributions to the health and happiness of Europe the not inconsiderable commodities of maize, the potato, rubber, tobacco, and quinine.