History Today

Remembered today as a national hero, Robert the Bruce, King of Scots, had an upbringing which spanned Essex to Ulster. He was a hybrid king to the last.

When a priceless altarpiece was stolen from a Belgian cathedral it sparked a 90-year hunt. The crime remains unsolved.

Miyamoto Musashi was finally defeated on 13 June 1645, but it wasn’t a sword that laid the formidable samurai low.

Could a text thought to be by Shakespeare’s father actually be his sister’s writing?

Approaching history through ideas – how people thought – is not the only method, but it is one that has stood the test of time.

In Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans: The British Occupation of Germany, 1945-49, Daniel Cowling brings lost stories to light – some of them, at least.

On 8 June 1949, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. His final novel, its themes had been present throughout his literary career.

Sarah Wise’s The Undesirables: The Law that Locked Away a Generation lays bare the cruelty and injustice of the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913.

A tour of Europe cemented Ronald Reagan’s reputation as an international statesman and helped secure his re-election.

In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East Barnaby Rogerson seeks geopolitical answers for ideological conflicts.