History Today

Consumer historian Robert Opie tells how he first came to recognise the value of everyday discarded things, and suggests the need for a new awareness of our recent past.

R.I. Moore considers what the new generation of world history atlases tells us about the state of history at the start of the third millennium.

Heather Shore challenges the view that the 19th century was a pivotal period of change in the treatment of young offenders.

As we approach the true end of the century, Peter Waldron argues that those who describe Europe’s experience of the last hundred years as bleak and dark are missing part of the story.

Desmond Shawe-Taylor on the re-opening of the Dulwich Picture Gallery and the history of its foundation.

Penny Young explores the astonishingly rich archaeological heritage of Oman.

Bruce Campbell argues that a unique conjunction of human and environmental factors went into creating the crisis of the mid-14th century.

Richard Reid demonstrates that the West’s perceptions about warfare in the history of Africa have not changed much over the centuries.

Janet Hartley describes the trials and tribulations of life for ‘our man’ in Peter the Great’s Moscow.

The explorer of West Africa died in Cape Town on June 3rd, 1900.