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

RECENTLY, I READ A NEWS ITEM ABOUT THE jobs most likely to disappear because of the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). And first among them, along with translators, are historians! Now I’m biased

The history of Mexico is epic. There are the Maya and the Aztecs; the meeting of two continents, with Moctezuma and Cortés; a cry for independence led by a priest-turned-general; the loss of more than

The first thing to remind ourselves is that our view of the past is definitely shaped. The way that we understand history is translated, constructed, created for us in multiple ways – the majority of

Philippe Ariès Pages RessuscitéesEdited by Guillaume Gros240pp. Cerf Éditions. €24. Given that Philippe Ariès wrote about man’s relation with his own mortality, it is piquant that the historian has be

You wouldn’t guess from the cover design—three songbirds silhouetted over swatches of picturesque Englishness—but Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems hits one of its sweet spots with a

This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of