Cultural

W.L.F. Nuttall describes how, when the Star Chamber was abolished in 1641 it became easier to print home news, and many newspapers appeared, supporting both sides in the Civil Wars.

E.A. Smith describes how, immediately after the Seven Years’ War, the young Earl Fitzwilliam became a grand tourist of Europe in the eighteenth-century style.

The Nok people of Nigeria were smelters of iron but also agriculturalists. The culture they founded may have a deep effect on the ancient history of Africa.

One of the most extraordinary impostors ever to appear in Europe, writes James R. Knowlson, afterwards became the devout and dignified old gentleman whose friendship Samuel Johnson valued.

A.L. Rowse introduces the legendary spirit whom generations of Cornish people heard roaring in the storm-winds. Jan Tregagle proves to have originated as an unscrupulous seventeenth-century steward.

Under the far-sighted rule of the Five Good Emperors, writes Anthony Birley, the Roman world enjoyed a period of unexampled prosperity and peace.

Ross Watson introduces Prince Eugene of Savoy; Marlborough’s companion in arms was not only a great soldier but also one of the most important patrons and collectors of his day; a modest man with a deep love of painting and architecture inspired by a strongly individual taste.

Charles Chevenix Trench explains how, from the reign of William the Conqueror until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the poacher was restrained by savage penal laws.

A characteristic product of eighteenth-century liberalism, the twenty-eight volumes of French Encyclopedia are here reviewed and reassessed by John Lough.

Anthony Bryer describes how, from 1453 to 1923 the dream of a recaptured Byzantium and a resurrected Byzantine Empire continued to haunt the Greek imagination.