Today’s featured articles
The First Crusade unleashed shockwaves felt across all of Christendom. New chapters to a story started in 1099 are still being written.
In 1825 Java’s old order rose up against encroaching European colonialism. What – and who – were the Javanese rebels fighting for?
Scotland’s short-lived, catastrophic Central American colony exposed its precarious relationship with England. Was closer union an inevitable result?
Most recent
On the Spot: Kathleen DuVal
‘What’s the most exciting field in history today? Native American history – the Native nations have only begun to tell their histories.’
‘I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer’ by Mary Beth North review
‘I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer’: Letters on Love and Marriage from the World’s First Personal Advice Column by Mary Beth Norton reveals the 17th-century origins of the agony aunt.
God’s Machines: Descartes and Nature
How should we see the natural world? For Descartes it was a mechanism, but a wondrous one.
‘Saudi Arabia: A Modern History’ by David Commins review
How did a Gulf backwater become a global powerbroker? Saudi Arabia: A Modern History by David Commins explores the uneasy alliance between oil, autocracy, and Wahhabism.
The Battle for Britain’s First Book of the Month Club
Britain’s first book-of-the-month club – the Book Society – brought reading to a vast new audience. But not without some controversy.
‘Language and Social Relations in Early Modern England’ by Hillary Taylor review
In Language and Social Relations in Early Modern England Hillary Taylor listens in the archives for the voices of ordinary people.
Swahili on the Road
How did Swahili become an East African lingua franca? It was not by accident.
The Death of the Great Barnato
On 5 July 1852 the curtain was raised on Barney Barnato, one of the richest men in South Africa.
Current issue
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In the July issue:
The Java War, Mein Kampf and the German people, the survival of Europe’s pagans, the speed of early modern news, Italian emigrants in the First World War, and more.
Plus: reviews, opinion, crossword and much more!
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