Today’s featured articles
As Malaya headed towards independence, the spectre of identity politics loomed. What place for cosmopolitan Penang and its diverse population?
In August 1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a boldly pacifist campaign speech, promising no American would have to go to war. It had seemed a realistic promise.
When it was discovered in the 19th century, the Library of Ashurbanipal revealed an ancient Assyrian empire previously known only through myth.
Most recent
Slavery in the Colonial Caribbean
This month marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved people in the English Caribbean.
‘Fakers’ by Rory Cormac review
Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line by Rory Cormac brings Britain’s shadowy Information Research Department into the light.
King of Games: Politics, Polo, and the Raj
Indian teams besting British sides on the polo field threatened to undermine the colonial enterprise.
‘The Shah’s Party and the Iranian Revolution That Followed’ review
In The Shah’s Party and the Iranian Revolution That Followed Robert Templer reveals the hubristic high point of the Pahlavi regime’s self-regard.
General Pinochet’s Return
Redressing the crimes of Pinochet’s regime has been a hard-fought and often contested process. Chile’s current presidency has revealed how easily progress can be reversed.
‘The Cheese and the Worms’ by Carlo Ginzburg review
A new translation marks the 50th anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg’s pioneering microhistory The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller.
The Case for King Arthur
Often dismissed as a myth, was there a real man behind the legend of King Arthur?
‘Charismatic Nations’ by Joep Leerssen review
Charismatic Nations: A Cultural History of Nationalism in Europe from 1800 to the Present by Joep Leerssen looks to art and not politics for the birth of the nation.
Current issue
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In the August 2026 issue:
Caesar and Cicero’s war of words, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s peace campaign, Charles Darwin’s sexual revolution, Brazil’s free press, the Clerkenwell Outrage, and more.
Plus: reviews, opinion, crossword, debate, and much more!
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