History Today

Pearl Harbor: The First Energy War

Charles Maechling argues that the Japanese attack, which took place on December 7th 1941, was partly a response to the country's limited energy resources.

Listening to the Past

Robert Perks explains the value of sound archives in the armoury of the modern historian, and introduces Britain’s premier collection of recorded speech.

President or King?

How the Republican triumph over the Federalists in the fiercely fought US elections of 1800 was due to skilful appropriation of the American Revolution to partisan ends

The Fabric of History

Kay Staniland unravels the threads of a career as costume historian and textile curator at the Museum of London

The Scum of Europe

Edward Pearce considers the vitriolic reception offered by some to Russian Jews seeking asylum in Britain a hundred years ago.

William Blake in Lambeth

Michael Phillips, guest curator of the major exhibition on Blake opening this month at Tate Britain, explores the lifestyle and work of the artist when he lived in Lambeth - and the anti-Jacobin terror of the early 1790s that threatened his radical activities

Boys' Books and the Great War

Michael Paris looks at the romanticised image of war in boys’ popular fiction prior to 1914, and at the sustaining appeal of the genre in spite of the realities of that event.