Volume: 59 Issue: 2

The conflict between supporters of Darwin’s theory of evolution and Creationists is often portrayed as the latest skirmish in an age-old struggle between science...

Richard Cavendish remembers the birth of Birth of the First Earl of Clarendon on February 18, 1609. 

Juliet Gardiner looks at recent publications marking the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s most famous work and the bicentenary of his birth

Richard Cavendish remembers the first American-Indian hero, who died on February 17th, 1909.

Already rocked by defeats in the War of the Spanish Succession, Louis XIV’s France faced economic meltdown as the chaotic nature of its finances became apparent....

Mark Bryant on how French cartoonists of the 1870s responded to national humiliation at the hands of a beligerent Prussia.

Charles Darwin, author of the theory of evolution, is the subject of widespread celebration and study this year.

The Turkish government’s plans to flood two ancient towns with the reservoirs created by two dams are being fiercely resisted – but time is rapidly running out, as...

Concerns about the British primary school curriculum made their way onto the political agenda last year with the publication of the interim Rose Report. With the full...

Edna Fernandes visits a madrassa in northern India founded in the wake of the Indian Mutiny. One of the first Islamic fundamentalist schools, its influence has...

Born a century ago, the ascetic French philosopher Simone Weil spent the last months of her short life exiled in London working for de Gaulle’s Free French. But, as...

The expulsion in 1609 of more than 300,000 Spanish Moriscos – Muslim converts to Christianity – was a brutal attempt to create an homogenous state, writes Matt Carr...

Niall Ferguson Allen Lane   442pp   £25ISBN 978 1 846 14106 5

Blair Worden considers the enduring and sometimes surprising consequences of the execution of King Charles I.

Andrew Davies (Milo Books) 336pp £11.99 ISBN 190 385481 4

Despite the rise of Barack Obama, many African-Americans still feel like second-class citizens. John Kirk charts the progress of the civil rights movement through...

Richard Cavendish remembers the infamous mafia massacre of February 14th, 1929.

During the 17th century, Britain witnessed the birth of a consumer society. But, as the number of possessions grew, so did the concept of ‘taste’, a subtle and...