Accessibility Links

The official website for BBC History Magazine and BBC World Histories Magazine

Subscribe to BBC History Magazine
  1. Home
  2. Period
  3. 20th Century
  4. Ian Kershaw on the trials of writing modern history

Ian Kershaw on the trials of writing modern history

Fallible memories and a surplus of sources mean that the most challenging era for historians to tackle is the one in which we now live, says Sir Ian Kershaw

Protesters on the streets of Prague during the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, 1968. Of all the history books Ian Kershaw has authored down the decades, his two wide-ranging volumes on modern Europe have proved the most difficult to write. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Want to read more?

Become a BBC History Magazine subscriber today to unlock all premium articles in The Library

Unlock now

Tags

Britains Best Selling History Magazine

Subscribe to BBC History Magazine today

Subscribe Now
Subscribe to BBC World Histories Magazine

Subscribe to BBC World Histories Magazine today

Subscribe Now

More on: Europe

Battle of Verdun. French trench on the front lines, 1916. (Photo by Roger Viollet/Getty Images)
Learn more about this subject

You may like

Children at the Berlin Wall on Sebastianstrasse, Berlin - Kreuzberg - in around 1964. (Photo by Lehnartz/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
Cold War

The secret history of the Berlin Wall

Subscribe for unlimited access to The Library
Unlock now
Reinhard Heydrich’s brutality was shocking, even by Nazi standards. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
Second World War

Killing Hitler’s hangman: the dramatic story of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination

Subscribe for unlimited access to The Library
Unlock now
Neville Chamberlain holds aloft the famous piece of paper at Heston aerodrome on 30 September 1938. (Picture by Alamy)
Second World War

The Munich crisis: the battle over appeasement

A scene from the 1963 film 'Naked Among Wolves', depicting a Nazi concentration camp
Second World War

The long shadow of Adolf Hitler

Subscribe for unlimited access to The Library
Unlock now