History Today

Barbara Murison tells how one of Stuart England's most successful civil servants used friends, influence and resources from around the globe to fit out a palatial residence in Gloucestershire

Frank Griffith Dawson finds echoes of the present in Latin America's financial situations of the past.

John Crossland on the ethical dilemmas facing those who wish to dig out Battle of Britain planes and pilots.

Roy Porter argues that historians must re-examine their purpose, between specialised study and general discovery.

Lawrence James describes how costs and logistics made air power a way of enforcing British policy in the Middle East between the wars.

Merle Ricklefs re-examines the impact of the Dutch in the East Indies and finds in the response of the Javanese a more complex story than that of technological superiority beating down a military-primitive response.

Ann Hills on excavations in the Arctic and displays in the Tromso Museum.

Richard Cavendish on a Great War remembrance group

How history re-enactment is being used to encourage children's interest in the past.

England's answer to Charlemagne, or merely a ruthless king of Mercia? Simon Keynes sifts the evidence for a verdict on the man best known today as the builder of a dyke.