History Today

Izaak Walton: Father of a Dream

In his book, The Compleat Angler, Izaak Walton, who died three hundred years ago this month, provided generations of anglers with a technique manual, a pastoral idyll - and an elegant apologia for their pastime. An Article by John Lowerson.

Luther: Sex, Marriage and Motherhood

Martin Luther, explains Lyndal Roper, summarised his view of sex, marriage and motherhood in a letter he wrote to three nuns in 1524, 'A women does not have complete mastery over herself. God created her body that she should be with a man and bear and raise children'.

Faction in Later Stuart England, 1660-1714

At the start of the reign of Charles II, government was the King's business and factions contested for the monarch's ear. The constitutional changes in later Stuart England added a new, parliamentary dimension to faction. But it did not disappear.

International Economic Co-operation After 1945

As Robert Lowe Hall, Lord Roberthall was the first British representative on the Economic and Employment Commission. In April 1947 he became Director of the Economic Section of the Cabinet Office, and in 1953 Economic Adviser to Her Majesty's Government.

Living the Fishing

'It's no fish ye're buying - it's men's lives', wrote Sir Walter Scott, and looking at the fishing industry in Scotland in the last century involves a vivid recreation of the hard life of the isolated fishing communities, their work and their family life.

The Fishermen's Religious Revival

1921 was an annus terribilis for the fishing communities of north-east Scotland - and the despair of the fisher folk, explains John Lowe Duthie, led them to religious fervour for consolation.