Volume 50 Issue 2 February 2000

Building Bridges in Bosnia

Penny Young looks at the ambititious plans to reconstruct the celebrated Ottoman bridge in Mostar, destroyed by fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovinia.

Conserving a Ruin

The last great medieval fortification in England, Wigmore Castle in Herefordshire, has been preserved as a romantic ruin at a cost of £1 million by English Heritage. Jim Kelsey reports on this remarkable feat.

My Aunt Esther

Stephen Bourne tells how a Blitz adoption led to his passion for rediscovering Black history in Britain.

Portrait of Britain: AD 500

James Campbell peers into the murk of the ‘Dark Ages’ and sifts truth from fiction about our post-Roman history.

Projecting a Greater France

Martin Evans contrasts the triumphalism of France’s 1931 Colonial Exhibition in Paris with the rotten reality of its ramshackle empire.

Racism for Lunch

Peter Ling describes how the refusal of four black students to accept a lunch-counter colour bar led to the collapse of segregation in the American south.

Royal Revenues

Phillip Hall analyses the finances of Britain’s monarchy, arguing that those who claim that the royals pay for themselves are misusing history.

Monsters and Christian Enemies

Debra Higgs Strickland examines the extraordinary demonology of medieval Christendom and the way it endowed strangers and enemies with monstrous qualities.