Feature

Gladiatorial shows turned war into a game, preserved an atmosphere of violence in time of peace, and functioned as a political theatre which allowed confrontation between rulers and ruled.

‘Kill not Moth nor Butterfly, For the Last Judgement draweth nigh’ wrote William Blake in Auguries of Innocence, reflecting the changing perception of man’s relation to the natural world.

When the British and Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, Governor Hobson declared: 'We are one people'. Today, as Professor Keith Sinclair shows, this hope has still to be realised.

Anne Roberts explores the incidence of plague in England from 1348 to 1679.