History Today

As conventional wisdom has it, Europe began to see the light at the end of a dark age sometime around 1500. Four experts try to date the birth of modernity.

‘I change my mind – at least a little – after everything I read.’

Four experts debunk the myth of modestly covered piano legs and point the finger of blame at ungrateful modernists. 

‘History has taught me to be sceptical of facile explanations based on prejudice.’

Announced on 12 March 1947 with the intention of containing Soviet expansion, the Truman Doctrine is sometimes seen as the first declaration of the Cold War. Four experts ask whether the conflict’s legacy is a defining one.

‘As an immigrant, I wanted to understand the roots of my adopted country.’

On the 100th anniversary of its publication, James Joyce’s Ulysses is widely regarded as a groundbreaking work of fiction, but can literature have any impact outside the confines of culture? 

Which king was nicknamed Beauclerc? When was the Barbados Independence Act?

Four historians consider whether the traditional Whig history of Britain, as one of evolutionary political progress, has ever been challenged by events.