History Today

A blend of fatalism and hope in 20th century Wales.

Announced on 12 March 1947 with the intention of containing Soviet expansion, the Truman Doctrine is sometimes seen as the first declaration of the Cold War. Four experts ask whether the conflict’s legacy is a defining one.

Often cast as subversive and seditious, despite the interventions of monarchs and governments the guilds of the Middle Ages have endured. 

The ‘emigration’ of thousands of poor London children in the 19th century was seen by its organisers as an act of Christian deliverance, but the experience of the young people sent to Canada tells a different story. 

Returning to the communist ‘cage’ of a childhood in Albania.

The parliament of Kilkenny, which passed the eponymous Statute, opened on 18 February 1366.

When Roman forces burned the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, the Flavian dynasty thought it had defeated the Jewish god in the name of Jupiter. It was mistaken. 

For most Egyptians independence came with the revolution of July 1952, not with the end of the British protectorate in February 1922. Yet, as the experiences of three patriotic writers show, independence did not mean freedom.

In March 1722 rebellious Afghan forces laid siege to the Safavid capital. Was the great Iranian empire on the brink of collapse?

‘As an immigrant, I wanted to understand the roots of my adopted country.’