History

Stalin so loved The Parricide ­­— the tale of a Robin Hood-style bandit who fought against aristocratic Russians — that he adopted the name of the book’s hero, Koba, as his primary pseudonym for many years.

The true casualty figures are still hotly disputed 100 years after the Punjab massacre, but its real legacy was the slow death of the Raj

The Romans had a tendency towards alarming additives in their drinks

A visit to Ely Cathedral perfectly encapsulates the history of England and her architecture.

The Coventry raid has stuck in the collective memory for a variety of reasons

RW “Bill” Johnson’s memoir of the college is a rattling good read

The Governor of the Bank of England ignored the lessons of history and the UK’s reputation for financial competence may never recover

The genocidal ghouls of Isis are tearing down a precious piece of our civilisation. This is the price we pay for not standing up to barbarism

Five British writers were in Russia in 1917. Each one had his own story, but all were overwhelmed by the powerful tide of history

The newly-published diaries of Ivan Maisky are an extraordinarily important 21st-century contribution to our understanding of the Second World War