Today’s featured articles
King Charles I’s execution in 1649 turned the world upside down – were other outcomes possible?
The slave trade was an international criminal enterprise. In 1811 an uprising on the slaving ship Amelia off the coast of West Africa revealed a complex network spanning four continents.
When it arrived on the Victorian stage, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre had a cast of new characters and a new social order.
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What is Environmental History?
The climate crisis is a hot topic, but what does it mean to study the history of our relationship with the natural world?
The Radical John Wilkes
Parliament’s champion of the people or scandalous, self-serving politician? Georgian radical John Wilkes kept a foot in both camps.
‘Killing the Dead’ by John Blair review
In Killing the Dead: Vampire Epidemics from Mesopotamia to the New World, John Blair proves that you can’t keep a good corpse down.
The Publication of ‘1066 and All That’
On 16 October 1930 Britain’s sense of its historical greatness was skewered with the release of 1066 and All That.
AD-X2: When US Politicians Took on Science
The dismissal of a government scientist over the unproven battery additive AD-X2 galvanised the American scientific community in the 1950s.
The Master and Mikhail Bulgakov
In the chaos unleashed by the October Revolution, Mikhail Bulgakov found a past become fragmented and confused, and history the domain of madmen and devils.
‘The Diver of Paestum’ by Tonio Hölscher review
The Diver of Paestum: Youth, Eros and the Sea in Ancient Greece by Tonio Hölscher – and translated by Robert Savage – searches beneath the surface for the meaning behind a beguiling fresco.
The Invention of Microbiology
On 9 October 1676 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek – the ‘Father of Microbiology’ – presented his findings to the Royal Society.
Current issue
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In the October issue:
Zoroastrians in the Great Game, Chinese astronomy, slavery after abolition, the North African roots of Saint Augustine, the Chamberlen family forceps, and more.
Plus: reviews, opinion, crossword and much more!
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