Contracting Out: Administrative Privatisation in the Reign of James I
Conrad Russell looks at the perks and pitfalls of public office-holding in Elizabethan and Jacobean England.
History Today
Afghanistan and Gladstone's Moral Foreign Policy
Roland Quinault discusses Gladstone’s view of the Second Afghan War both in opposition and during his premiership.
Aztecs: A New Perspective
John M.D. Pohl reviews recent scholarship about the empire swept away by Cortes.
Madame Tussaud and her Waxworks
Pamela Pilbeam celebrates the bicentenary of the arrival of Madame Tussaud's waxworks in Britain.
Lord Aberdeen Becomes Prime Minister
George Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen, became Prime Minister on December 19th, 1852.
Hitler’s History Films
David Welch looks at the dramatisation of Führerprinzip in the Nazi cinema, and how history films were used to propagate themes of anti-parliamentarianism and the concept of an individual leader of genius.
The Great Smog
Devra Davis looks at the London Smog disaster of 1952-53.
Cesare Borgia at Sinigallia
The illegitimate child of Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia thwarted a plot by his own men on December 31st, 1502.
Did the Sewing Machine Bring Liberation or Drudgery?
With its effects felt on both the household and workplace, the invention of the sewing machine changed women’s lives. But not always for the better.
Gibraltar: Apple of Discord
As Gibraltar conducts a referendum on its future, Martin Murphy shows the degree to which its status was determined by rivalries between the 18th-century Great Powers.