Prince of purity: Wilhelm IV of Bavaria and the Reinheitsgebot. Ⓒ Bridgeman Images
Months Past

The Bavarian Beer Purity Law is adopted

The Reinheitsgebot was adopted on 23 April 1516.

Paul Lay

Soviet tanks roll into Prague, 21 August 1968.
History Matters

Why the Prague Spring was Doomed to Failure

‘Socialism with a human face’ came head to head with the realities of Soviet communism.

Ilana Seelinger

Top of cannabis plant in vegetative growth stage
From The Archive

Cannabis, the 'Homelie Herbe'

The medicinal history of cannabis in Britain.

Vivienne Crawford

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‘Blowing mutinous Sepoys from the guns’, India, 1858.
Review

Whose Civilising Mission?

The story of the skull of a victim of the Indian Uprising of 1857 raises profound questions about imperialism.  

Portrait of Marie Antoinette with her Children, by Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1787. (Château de Versailles, France / Bridgeman Images)
Feature

The Female Gaze Made Flesh

There were many obstacles preventing women from becoming artists in the 18th century, but those who overcame them created some of the most influential art of their time. 

'Monstra Niliaca Parei', from Aldrovandi’s History of Monsters, 1642.
Cover Story

Mermaids and Mermen

Some of the most intelligent people in early modern Europe were convinced of the existence of merpeople.

Bust of Philip II of Macedon, first century AD. (Bridgeman Images)
Feature

The United States of Greece

The urge to create a Greek nation state goes back millennia. Its success depended on a shared notion of ‘Greekness’ across widespread city states. 

Still life with flowers, Hans Gillisz. Bollongier, 1639.
Miscellanies

Tulipmania: An Overblown Crisis?

Historians have overplayed the extent of the moral, social and economic impact of the 17th-century craze for trading tulip bulbs. The original Dutch sources reveal a much more...

History Matters

Monstrous Regiment

One of the great struggles of writing a history of gender identity is understanding people’s internal lives. How should we talk about those who dressed as men and went to war?

Hester Street’s pushcarts, by Berenice Abbot, 1935.
Feature

On the Streets of New York City

The pushcarts of the Lower East Side epitomised New York’s bustling immigrant community. The drive to Americanise brought about their demise and changed the streets forever. 

The Siege of Antioch during the First Crusade in 1098, 15th-century manuscript.
Feature

Weapons of War in the Crusades

Turkish archers versus Frankish heavy cavalry. The Crusades marked a period of technological breakthroughs in the art of war that would decide the conflict.

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Current Issue

Cover of the May issue

Volume 68 Issue 5 May 2018

  • Mermaids and mermen
  • The United States of Ancient Greece
  • The anchorites who escaped
  • Weapons of war in the Crusades
  • Female painters: portrait of the artist
  • Poland and the problematic nature of Holocaust remembrance
  • The history of Wales in pictures

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