Feature

Female explorers of the 19th century demolished Victorian notions of stay-at-home women. But why were they so vehemently anti-feminist? The case of Mary Wollstonecraft may hold the answer. 

Is Kazakhstan 30 or 556 years old? As the five states of Central Asia celebrate three decades of independence, they prefer the glories of the ancient past to the legacy of Soviet rule. 

The victory of the Greeks over Persia in 480 BC was more than just a landmark in naval warfare. It shaped the way the past is understood. 

Can we trust historical archives? State-run collections of documents are prone to abuse both by those who use them and their gatekeepers. 

The House of Lords, often in the shadow of the Commons, asserted its power during the reigns of James I and his son, Charles I. But it would be eclipsed by civil war. 

Will current crises make it possible to study the ‘uniquely evil’ Third Reich as if it were just another period of the past?

Was the conquest of Tenochtitlan the result of an Aztec civil war or Spanish invasion? The events in the capital are in desperate need of reappraisal.

The recently discovered chronicle of an opinionated, elderly aristocrat provides a vivid portrayal of Paris during the most febrile days of the French Revolution.

Two heroes of the 1821 Greek Revolution found themselves cast out of the national pantheon because of their gender. In the centuries that followed, their legends would be used to justify a range of nationalist causes.

The visitors’ books of 19th-century hotels, pubs and inns show Victorians on holiday, revealing them to be irreverent pleasure seekers, capable of highfalutin pomposity and touristic wrath.