Political

Girolamo Savonarola held a puritanical sway over Florence in the last decade of the 15th century, ending 60 years of Medici domination.

Bernard Porter on espionage, past and present.

Alexander Kazhdan considers the influence of totalitarianism and meritocracy in the Byzantine empire – and its relationship to the growth of the Russian and other successor states in the East.

Clare Thomson on the pace of change in the Baltic States.

Kenneth Fowler examines the motives and connections of an upwardly-mobile 'bon Breton' in the Hundred Years War.

To export the Revolution's benefits across Europe was the early hope of the French - but the unenthusiastic response from the liberated peoples rapidly soured the vision. Tim Blanning chronicles that descent from optimism to realpolitik.

Despite the later conflicts between Church and Revolution, Nigel Aston argues that the majority of France's churchmen in 1789 were keen for reform and eager for change.

200 years on, the 'inferior endorsements' that Washington brought to the first Presidential inauguration can be seen, Esmond Wright argues, as extraordinarily successful in setting constitutional precedents that have endured in the United States.