Mathew Lyons

Mathew Lyons argues that historians need to make a greater impact on the political debate about the kind of world we wish to live in.

How much are actions – especially extreme ones – the result of impersonal historical forces and how much are they dependent upon the impulses of individual actors? 

While we return again and again to the proto-historians of the classical world, we neglect those pioneering figures closer to us in space and time. Why is this, wonders Mathew Lyons?

Though we share a common humanity with people of the past, their world can seem alien to us, says Mathew Lyons. Was it just as disconcerting for them, too?

The struggle between certainty and doubt is at the heart of history, says Mathew Lyons. It should be relished for what it reveals about a past where facts are sometimes in short supply.

Without dexterity and imagination historians are in danger of overlooking the telling details that complete the bigger picture, argues Mathew Lyons.

Our conceptions of time have become more accurate but less personal, says Mathew Lyons.

Mathew Lyons on why Horse Guards Parade was an appropriate location to host the Olympic beach volleyball.

Mathew Lyons finds stimulation in an allusive article on Sir Walter Ralegh, first published in History Today in 1998.