History Today

Distilled 'spirit of the age' or a branch of sociology? Great men and their thoughts - with a lucky dip for culture vultures - or elite ideas whose time had come? Five historians discuss ground rules for the study of intellectual history. 

Four viewpoints - one from its editor, three from reviewers - on the making of a major new historical encyclopedia.

A ballot-box 'revolution' made Hitler Chancellor of Germany. But political violence was the stock-in-trade consolidating Nazi power piecemeal throughout 1933 against disorganised opponents.

In the early 1930s, when National Socialism became a mass movement, it drew strong support from the Protestant rural population. The emergence of the Third Reich and the advent of the Second World War saw a gradual shift in attitudes to the Nazi movement and regime. Gerhard Wilke looks at a rural community in northern Hesse.

Not all young Germans were enthusiasts for Hitler Youth ideas - and some actively opposed them.

Protestant martyr, prodigy of Renaissance learning, star-crossed lover, Hollywood heroine? The changing images of England’s Nine Days Queen of 1553.

The accession of Henry Tudor to the throne of England in 1485, the Crown had been fought over by the great magnates. When Elizabeth I died 118 years later, the Crown was master over them via the Court with the gentry its willing accomplices. Penry Williams examines the means by which the Tudors achieved this political dominance.