History Today

Maya Mañana

Ann Hills explores long-term excavations on the ancient Central American civilisation.

Alcuin and the 'New Athens'

Charlemagne may have been the first Holy Roman Emperor but what did he do to dispel the 'Dark Ages'? Mary Alberi looks at the work of his leading court intellectual, Alcuin, and how his hopes for a 'New Athens' in the Aachen palace school promoted the Carolingian Renaissance.

Byzantium: The Emperor's New Clothes?

Alexander Kazhdan considers the influence of totalitarianism and meritocracy in the Byzantine empire – and its relationship to the growth of the Russian and other successor states in the East.

Power and Politics in Early Modern Italy

A country divided, degenerate and in cultural decline? Robert Oresko examines the changing views historians are developing of Italy between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and finds a society far more vibrant and complex than tradition suggests.