Volume: 63 Issue: 1

The right to determine who enters its territory has always been seen as a test of a state’s sovereignty, but the physical boundaries have often been vague, says...

The bibliophile and founder of the Bodleian Library died on January 29th, 1613.

In challenging times Britons seek comfort in a past that never existed. Tim Stanley shatters their illusions.

The capital went underground on January 9th, 1863.

The French poet was ordered to leave his city on January 3rd, 1463.

Inspired by his upbringing at the English court, Hákon I – nicknamed ‘Athelstan’s foster-son’ – strove to make Norway more like his mentor’s realm, a well-...

In our latest survey of historical fiction Jerome de Groot finds a remarkable breadth of books that address our need for present-day certainties to confound the...

Benjamin Ziemann examines the enigma of Karl Mayr, the reclusive army officer who nurtured Adolf Hitler’s early political career and participated in the Kapp...

Syrie Maugham was a businesswoman and beauty whose interior designs became a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. However her relationships with a series of...

A selection of readers' correspondence with the editor, Paul Lay.

Tom Wareham examines the role played by a legendary yet ill-fated pirate in the consolidation of England’s early trading empire.

The recent introduction of police commissioners to England and Wales is supposed to bring the force closer to the people. But, asks Clive Emsley, where is the...

Roger Hudson expands on a photograph of Enoch Powell campaigning in his Wolverhampton seat in 1970.

Nigel Watson celebrates 80 years of the British Interplanetary Society.

Pilgrims were a lucrative source of income for the Church and miracles did not come free. Adrian Bell and Richard Dale discover some striking parallels with modern...

Postwar decolonisation in West Africa saw tensions rise between the fading imperial powers of France and Britain, according to papers recently unearthed by Kathryn...

Hent Kalmo considers the roots of sovereignty and the changing basis determining the authority of a state to govern itself or another state at the expense of local...

Enter our crossoword for January and win the audiobook The Invention of Childhood by Hugh Cunningham and Michael Morpurgo.

Mark Ronan describes new efforts  at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, to decode the world’s oldest undeciphered language.

A new acccount of the Taiping Rebellion, an event largely forgotten in the West but of huge importance.

A major antidote to the dangerous view that Europe and America will increasingly come into conflict with non-Western civilisations.

A biography of historian-statesman Thomas Babington Macaulay and his abolitionist father Zachary  advances the history of Britain and the British Empire....

Revisiting one of the more curious exports to India from Britain: women seeking husbands.

Paul Lay enjoys a loving, almost lecherous, illustrated book that looks back fondly at the 18th century.