Roy Porter

A project aimed at preventing the destruction of key historical events on film.

Gibbon may have been a man of his time but he was also master of his craft in deploying facts to show history (through the medium of the Roman Empire) as self-generating and self-explanatory, writes Roy Porter.

A rage for Mesmerism gripped society in London at the end of the 18th century, as it had in Paris and Vienna. But it was to be short-lived. The excesses of its devotees soon discredited the 'science' in the eyes of the public and it eventually became a vehicle for unbalanced fringes of society.

Roy Porter explains how historians react to being misunderstood.

History may ultimately be story-telling, but one moral that's lost on most historians is that every picture tells a story, says Roy Porter.

Roy Porter on a Scottish doctor who became the fashionable surgeon of choice in 18th century London.

Roy Porter listens to the words historians use.

Roy Porter reviews three books on the politics of the 18th century.