History Books

The professor of religion explains how medieval Jews and Christians collaborated. He recommends five books that have changed the way we look at medieval art.

The Professor of History outlines how our understanding of deceit has changed: from a devilish sin in the Middle Ages, to a social necessity in the Enlightenment

The social historian argues London is an intrinsically addictive city. He charts its history through its dependencies on chocolate, tobacco, coffee, and tea.

Which were the best speeches ever made? Clarence B Jones, lawyer, friend and adviser to Martin Luther King Jr—and contributor to the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech—chooses his top five, and explains what is that makes these famous speeches so good.

The explorer and author of Into the Silence, Wade Davis, tells us that the consequences of the Great War were much more than merely political. He says the war had a noticeable impact on exploration, arts and literature, and modernity itself.

Queen Victoria was anything but Victorian and Lord Byron was more vulnerable than we think, says writer Jonathan Keates – who considers emails a poor substitute for a hand-written correspondence.

As the Olympics open, David Runciman looks back at the two previous times that the Games have been staged in London and finds that the thrift of today looks modest compared with austerities of the past

The Belle Epoque combined a preoccupation with the noblesse of the old regime with the seeds for modernism, says Oxford history professor Ruth Harris, author of an award-winning book on the Dreyfus affair. She picks the best books on a golden period in France before the outbreak of World War I.

The freedom to pick up a book is something we take almost for granted today but women readers have faced all manner of obstacles throughout history, says Professor Belinda Jack, author of The Woman Reader. She recommends five key texts in the history of women readers.

The scholar of language tells us about the progress of the spoken word from 3000 BC to today, how two languages disappear every month, and the 50,000-word novel written without using the letter “e”