Should historians interpret the past through the prism of the present?

THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

Jonathan Kennedy “Pandemics have killed millions of people

WELCOME

JUNE 2023 “Elizabeth I did not have the

ANNIVERSARIES

HELEN CARR highlights events that took place in June in history

MICHAEL WOOD ON…

400 YEARS OF THE FIRST FOLIO

“History is currently being used for political purposes that have very little to do with the past”

Is the study of history being skewed by a present-day ‘culture war’? That’s the view of History Reclaimed, an online project that aims to tackle what it sees as distortions of the past – and which has been met with both praise and criticism. Matt Elton spoke to ZAREER MASANI, one of the organisation’s founding members

HIDDEN HISTORIES

KAVITA PURI explores lesser-known stories from our past

LETTERS

A miniature of Turkic-Mongol conqueror Timur, whose intellectual

Q&A

A selection of historical conundrums answered by experts

BOOKS

20TH CENTURY “ is is the journey of

“Henry was not a great king but he was respected as a most Christian one”

DAVID CARPENTER talks to David Musgrove about the second part of his biography of King Henry III, and the extraordinary revolution that removed him from power in 1258

Visions of England

MICHAEL WOOD enjoys a thought-provoking exploration of English identity from the postwar period to the present day and the myths that have been told about England

THE CLASSIC BOOK

Nigel Jones on a landmark and bestselling account of the outbreak of the First World War

Hitler’s forgotten victims

CHRISTINE SCHMIDT welcomes an important new book detailing the fraught search for justice by the Roma in the aftermath of their genocidal persecution by the Nazis

Siren song

Attack Warning Red! How Britain Prepared for Nuclear

Monstrous tales

Woman’s Lore by Sarah Clegg Head of Zeus,

How to be a woman

The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on

Living forever

Elixir: A Story of Perfume, Science and the

A European success story

PETER ANDERSON is impressed by a sweeping history of modern Spain, covering a century in which the country experienced both wartime tragedy and economic triumph

ENCOUNTERS

DIARY By Jonathan Wright, Paul Bloomfield and Samantha

“Wedgwood was a businessman, an engineer, a designer, a political activist – a phenomenal figure”

TRISTRAM HUNT (left), director of the V&A Museum, discusses his new documentary about ceramics entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and the rise and decline of his Wedgwood company

HISTORY COOKBOOK

A dash of rum, a sprinkle of sugar,

Tailor-made for Tudors

From decorated codpieces to ‘sheep colour’ fabrics, our podcast editor ELLIE CAWTHORNE discusses a recent episode on how to stay fashionable in Tudor England

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The Tudors’ origin story

EXPLORE… PEMBROKE, PEMBROKESHIRE

Madrid in five places

A Moorish citadel that became an imperial capital, Madrid today is a cosmopolitan city. JULES STEWART picks five unmissable sites that illuminate its history

PRIZE CROSSWORD

Across 7 African port, the focal point of

NEXT MONTH

July issue on sale 8 June 2023

Lord Kitchener

1922–2000

Elizabeth I: mother’s girl

The Virgin Queen lionised her father, Henry VIII, in public. Yet, writes Tracy Borman, examine what Elizabeth did – as opposed to what she said – and it’s evident that her sympathies lay with Anne Boleyn

THE RACE TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD

On the 70th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest, Robin Ashcroft charts the trials, tragedies and triumphs that led to that pioneering climb – and its implications for Britain’s place on the world stage

Black masses, lethal potions and the plot to kill a king

In the 1670s, Louis XIV of France was the target of a series of assassination attempts involving poisons and necromancy. But who was the perpetrator? Josephine Wilkinson untangles a conspiracy that scandalised a nation

WHEN GERMS MADE HISTORY

Infectious diseases don’t just make individuals sick – they can cause seismic shifts in societies. Jonathan Kennedy charts six moments when pathogens such as plague, smallpox and malaria played key roles in major cultural, political and economic transformations

How Britain stirred the cauldron of conflict in Palestine

Having ousted the Ottomans from Palestine in 1917, Britain administered a territory that was already a tinderbox of tensions between Arabs and Jews. Matthew Hughes explores the bloody end of the Palestine Mandate and the emergence of the State of Israel

The queen who wouldn’t go quietly

Margaret of Anjou was a foreigner – and a woman. Those facts alone should have sunk her bid to regain the English throne for her husband, Henry VI. Yet, writes Joanna Arman, when it came to fighting her family’s corner, Margaret simply didn’t know when she was beaten

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BBC History Magazine is Britain’s bestselling history magazine. We feature leading historians writing lively and thought-provoking new takes on the great events of the past.

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