History Today

From Augustine to Alfred - Janet Backhouse discusses the material evidence and new views that are the backcloth to the major exhibition of Anglo-Saxon art and culture opening at the British Museum this month.

Margaret Jervis looks at Professor Martin Bernal's controversial work on Greek prehistory.

Richard Cavendish visits the society dedicated to Britain's great military hero.

Did he fall... or was he pushed? Michael MacDonald investigates the cause celebre of Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, found with his throat cut in the Tower of London and sheds light on attitudes to suicide and the political and religious strife of Restoration England.

Nancy Mitford takes a perceptive and ironic look at the reaction of 18th-century French 'society' to the Enlightenment's great philosophe.

Robin Blackburn describes how the message of liberte, egalite, fraternite, acted as crucial catalyst for race and class uprisings in Europe's Caribbean colonies.

Lions led by donkeys? Britain's most traumatic land offensive of the First World War drew to its conclusion in November 1916. Trevor Wilson and Robin Prior reassess the campaign, the wisdom of its strategy and tactics, and the reputation of its C-in-C, Douglas Haig.

Mark Clapson looks at how Victorian morality drove the pleasures of betting underground, and relates the various devices that enabled the working-classes to sustain the reputation of a nation of gamblers.

Christopher Abel on the often dangerous work of academics in Colombia