Feature

‘Brisk Cathartic’: A sick man stranded on the toilet after taking a laxative. Coloured etching by J. Gillray, 1804, after J. Sneyd. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain.

Shameful Secrets: The Sexual Health of Early Modern Men

Men’s awkwardness when talking about their bodies, especially sexual health, has changed little since the 17th century.

Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Britain

We may know it when we see it, but corruption is not a fixed concept. Mark Knights explains how 300 years of scandal have forged perceptions of what is – and what is not – corrupt.

Liberty and the Common Law

England’s legal system, which has since spread beyond its country of origin, resulted from an uncommon combination of centuries of input from a wide variety of sources. Harry Potter traces its roots and follows its branches.

Peter the Great's Special Book

The reforming Tsar sought to westernise his empire, yet in 1723 he published an uncompromising reassertion of his absolutist doctrine, which has traditionally marked Russia’s national consciousness.

African-American suffragist Nannie Helen Burroughs, far left, at the Banner State Woman’s National Baptist Convention in 1915

Slavery, Women’s Suffrage and the American Civil War

As calls for women’s suffrage gained momentum following the Civil War, an uncomfortable racial faultline emerged dividing white suffragists from their African-American sisters.

Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie on horseback, by Walter Mittelholzer, c. February 1934. ETH Library Zurich. Public Domain.

In the Court of Haile Selassie

Three very different writers – Evelyn Waugh, Wilfred Thesiger, and Ryszard Kapuscinski – reported on the court of Haile Selassie during his reign, producing contrasting accounts of Ethiopia’s emperor.

A Portuguese merchant is greeted by his Indian household, early 16th century.

Portugal: The First Global Empire

Poor and small, Portugal was at the edge of late medieval Europe. But its seafarers created the age of ‘globalisation’, which continues to this day.

A Society Built On Slavery

The extent to which Britons were involved in slave-ownership has been laid bare by a project based at University College London. Katie Donington shows how one family profited.

Maximilien Robespierre on the scaffold, 28 July 1794, c. 1799. Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris. Public Domain.

The Fall of Robespierre

The momentous final days of Maximilien Robespierre are well documented. Yet many of the established ‘facts’ about the Thermidorian Reaction are myths.