History in all its forms is more popular nowadays than ever. History programmes on television can attract audiences in the millions, as do top heritage sites, while growing numbers of people pursue family and local history and join historical re-enactment societies. A bestselling history book can nowadays outsell a popular novel, something almost unimaginable fifty years ago.

Who are the men and women who have helped make the past of such absorbing interest to the present, and how have they done so? In his stimulating anthology of essays about the life and work of some of our leading historians, Daniel Snowman provides a vivid snapshot of history and historians in our new century.

Included in Historians are: Jeremy Black, John Brewer, Asa Briggs, Peter Burke, David Cannadine, Linda Colley, Norman Davies, Natalie Zemon Davis, Christopher Dyer, Richard J. Evans, Niall Ferguson, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Orlando Figes, Eric Foner, Roy Foster, Antonia Fraser, Eric Hobsbawm, Geoffrey Hosking, Lisa Jardine, John Keegan, Ian Kershaw, John Morrill, Laurence Rees, Lyndal Roper, Simon Schama, Peter Stansky, David Starkey, Theodore Zeldin.