Feature

The Thai-Burma railway was built by prisoners of war in appalling conditions. The dead were treated with a dignity denied to the living.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 16 empires of varying size and reach. At the end of the century, there was just one: the United States. How did this happen and what role did Britain play in smoothing America’s path to global hegemony?

The Conquest of Mexico was justified by the Spanish as an evil necessary to save a people who practised human sacrifice and worshipped false gods. 

Relations between Iran and Britain have often been strained. Yet the relationship is an old one, marked by mutual admiration.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, patients were encouraged to snuff, snort and sneeze their way out of a whole range of ailments and illnesses. 

Is it possible for dissidents to bring peaceful change to repressive regimes?

Turning chaotic havens of sloth and debauchery into systemised institutions of pain and terror, Victorian Britain’s ‘model’ prisons were anything but.

The voice of the British monarch carried considerable weight in imperial India. Its slow silencing mirrored the retreat of Britain from the subcontinent. 

‘The greatest good for the greatest number’ flounders when society cannot agree on what is ‘good’ – or ‘bad’.