By the early 20th century the indigenous San peoples of South Africa were deemed to be almost extinct. The arguments for their protection drew on colonial methods of wildlife preservation and reduced them to the status of an endangered species.
‘What’s past is prologue’ Shakespeare wrote – but so little is known of his own. There are plenty of theories, each as implausible as the next.
British military engagement in northwest Europe did not pause after Waterloo and resume in 1914. The intervening century saw fluctuations in French power – and the creation of a strategic system to control it.
Hinduism predates colonialism by thousands of years, but in Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity Manu S. Pillai explains how European ideas shaped Hindutva.
The ancient world found him to have achieved greatness and thrust it upon his name, but was the destruction of Babylon Cyrus’ divinely ordained destiny?
More than 5,000 people were interviewed during the Great Inquisition of medieval Toulouse. What did this mean for those ordinary people called to give evidence?
On 25 July 1908 chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda gave name to an elusive new taste: umami.
In 1903 a group of politicians tried to sell tariffs as a panacea to all of Britain’s problems. Would the public buy it?
Hertha Ayrton’s experiment in a bathtub may have saved lives in the trenches, but it caused ripples among the ranks of the Royal Society.
‘What’s the most exciting field in history today? Native American history – the Native nations have only begun to tell their histories.’
