History Today

Hawai‘i’s Mauna Kea is among the best places in the world to study the universe, but the construction of a new super telescope is about more than astronomy.

A valedictory column provides a chance to reflect on a decade grappling with what history is and how it should be written.

Remembered as Adam’s first wife, a child-killing demon and a feminist hero, who was Lilith?

Soaring and swooping through a history of Catholicism, from 1789 to the present day.

Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire by Nandini Das details the uncertainty, contingency and precarity of England’s imperial ambitions.

‘Those in power tend to dictate the way history gets written.’

Liberté, égalité, fraternité – oranges? What does Maximilien Robespierre’s fondness for citrus fruit reveal?

Long out of fashion, the term ‘Third World’ emerged amid the political polarisation of the Cold War. Now there is war in Europe again, and renewed talk of Non-Alignment. Does the ‘Global South’ exist?

Charles Dickens’ most enduring friendship was with his sister-in-law, who has been remembered as his housekeeper.

Depicting an ancient world in which Amazons fought alongside men, winds had distinct characters, and tortoises sang.