Saving Face
The Renaissance face provided clues about the wealth and health of its owner. Those who had been disfigured were often mistreated, but to alter one’s appearance carried a stigma of its own.
Feature
Crime in the City of Brotherly Love
At its founding, Pennsylvania had one of the most tolerant criminal law systems in the world, but by the middle of the 18th century its capital Philadelphia was a ‘hell of the officials and preachers’.
A Woman’s Place
Work was once deemed suitable for women only until they married. And it was not just men who thought that should be the case.
The French Connection
The aim of Charles I’s foreign policy was to restore his nephew’s lands in the Rhineland. France, he thought, was the key to success.
The Hidden History of Black Diplomacy
Exploring the important, but elusive, diplomatic role played by people of African descent in early modern Europe.
A ‘Creative Microhistory’ of a Medieval Manor
The distant past is not often illustrated with plentiful descriptions of everyday life. Instead, the picture has to be put together from different sources, piece by piece, like a jigsaw. But there are often still gaps, which can be filled with historically informed creativity.
Size Matters
In Georgian Britain, England’s ‘heaviest man’ became a celebrity, his likeness reproduced across an array of media.
Lynching the British
The actions of lynch mobs during the late 19th century damaged the United States’ relationship with Britain and threatened its self-appointed role as the world’s moral guardian.
Organisation Todt
‘Hitler’s architect’ Albert Speer denied all responsibility for the ruthless exploitation of millions of slave labourers. Yet he was head of a bureaucratic machine that did just that.
The Darien Scheme
Scotland’s short-lived, catastrophic Central American colony exposed its precarious relationship with England. Was closer union an inevitable result?