History Today

Peter Cotgreave explains how modern scientists can use their predecessors' data.

James Walvin on how tea, sugar and tobacco hooked Britons into a fondness for the fruits of imperial expansion.

Fools' gold, Dr Faustus - traditional images of a Renaissance black art. But was there more to it than that? Zbigniew Szydlo and Richard Brzezinski offer an intriguing rehabilitation.

Brian Winston casts a critical eye over Leni Riefenstahl's cinematic paean to Nazi aesthetics.

Penny Johnston introduces the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland.

Michael Leech celebrates the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers.

Christopher Dyer argues for an upgrading of the town’s importance in the Middle Ages.

Ronan Thomas takes a look at the cultures of Korea after becoming independent from Japan in 1945.

John Tosh examines the intriguing tensions between masculinity and domesticity in 19th-century Britain.