Social

The Russians in Central Asia

The economic and cultural transformation of Russia’s vast possessions in Central Asia is still rapidly going forward. Geoffrey Wheeler describes how she began to enter this field during the first half of the eighteenth century.

The British State Lotteries

Often denounced by moralists and economic experts, writes Robert Woodhall, public lotteries flourished in England from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I until their abolition in 1826.

Giuseppi Garibaldi, 1807-1882

The prototype of nationalist hero, yet a great internationalist, Garibaldi believed passionately in freedom but did not, writes Denis Mack Smith, disdain dictatorial methods.

Friedrich Engels and the England of the 1840s

W.O. Henderson and W.H. Chalonert describe how it was from incomplete evidence, and in a spirit of political prejudice, that Engels compiled his famous account of the condition of the British working-classes.

Ferdinand Lassalle, 1825-1864

Vivian Lewis introduces the life and and career of a gifted demagogue and revolutionary; Ferdinand Lassalle founded the first German Socialist party and was killed in a romantic duel.

The Mormons in America: The Story of a Frontier

When Mark Twain said of the Mormons, 'Their religion is singular but their wives are plural' he expressed the sum of what is generally known about them. Yet the Mormon story deserves to be better known. It illuminates one side of the development of a pioneer society, and forms a commentary upon many of the main themes of American history.