Feature

In the Victorian countryside, what did going to church on Sundays actually mean?

How did the executed English nurse Edith Cavell become the unlikely protector of the German poet who pronounced her dead? 

What do the tyrants of the 20th century have in common? Terror, confusion and quasi-religious followings.

As a frontline soldier in the First World War, the German artist Otto Dix fell under the spell of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and his assault on Christian morality.

Medieval French monarchs used – and abused – the charismatic power of religious women.

The changing fates of one of France’s grandest castles are a microcosm for its history.

An alliance between Louis XIV and a Transylvanian prince was just one aspect of the Sun King’s ambition to dominate Europe.

The Third Reich’s obsession with a pure Germanic past led to a renewed interest in the witch hunts of early modern Germany.

Mark Twain painted an evocative vision of the Mississippi River, but he didn’t tell the whole story.

Sweltering British imperialists relied on an army of fan bearers, whose stories are as invisible as the air they circulated.