History & Classics

As a British wartime child living near secret things and sites, I can remember easily respecting the instruction: ‘Just forget you saw that!’ But years later in Germany, I learned how often...

Beyond the violence and immediacy of his language, perhaps Jean-Paul Marat was popular for a more straightforward reason: he gave his readers a plausible and often far-sighted account of what they were...

The ‘incredible iridescence’ of American feathered headdresses, artworks, shields and wall hangings attracted Jacobean collectors. In early modern England, ‘people were surrounded by...

Despite not securing the succession, despite being Catholic, Catherine, queen of Great Britain from 1662 until Charles’s death in 1685, managed to be perceived as an ideal consort. Royal wives were...

Political uncertainty and the problem of communicating at a distance, especially between Jacobites in Britain and the exiled Stuart court on the Continent, supplied opportunities for amphibious behaviours...

In Milan, Augustine, like colonial Australians or New Zealanders returning ‘home’ to London, experienced a social slippage. In Africa, Augustine had felt very Roman. In Italy, he was made...

Dror Wahrman argues that ‘it is hard to overestimate – though easy to forget – the cultural significance of the masquerade.’ Devotees of Bridgerton might quibble with ‘easy...

The Marquis de Morès was an extraordinary villain in an epoch crowded with the vile and the louche. After he killed a Jewish officer in a duel in 1892, a prosecutor seeking his conviction for murder...

Throughout the 1920s, MacDonald had faced accusations, especially from the left, that he was too fond of aristocratic company and the trappings of office. But it isn’t necessary to accept that his...

If historians​ are remembered posthumously, it tends to be for their book titles, while the books themselves gather dust. James Bryce is mostly known today for his surveys of two of history’s...

Early samurai were members of a professional warrior class who served under a daimyo; they fought with bow and arrow on horseback, in cumbersome box-like armour. This suit is in the lighter dōmaru...

The Ptolemies came too late for many histories of Greece and Egypt and too early for Rome. Alexandria, their capital, has disappeared beneath the sea and the modern city. Their grandest monument, the...

While Æthelstan’s grandfather, Alfred, had revived the practice of issuing law codes, Æthelstan was by far the most industrious legislator his dynasty had produced, responsible for six...

That slavery persisted in Muslim societies well into the 20th century is undeniable. More questions need to be asked about its distinctive features, the extent of its connection with the Atlantic trade...

Until at least the 17th century, the good folk of the Baltic region were notorious for cherishing specimens of the local snake population in their homes, keeping them well fed and watered. Were these...

Claude Villiaume’s clients appear to have been happy to embrace the notion of arbitrary fortune. For men it turned matchmaking into a game, and helped to explain failure. Women, often steeped in...

The rise of democracy coincided with the transition from wood to coal, and decolonisation in the 20th century precipitated the growth of fertiliser consumption, air travel, motor vehicles and industrial...

Mossad relied heavily on assorted European security agencies for intelligence on Palestinian activities. Not only did they often provide the intelligence Mossad needed to select its targets, they also...