Volume 39 Issue 9 September 1989

Cousins Once Removed

Peter Parker describes the difficulties in writing historical biographies and his effort on writer and editor J.R. Ackerley.

Dun Re-Done

Tony Aldous on the restoration of a mansion of an outstanding early 18th-century Scottish architect.

Maya Mañana

Ann Hills explores long-term excavations on the ancient Central American civilisation.

Alcuin and the 'New Athens'

Charlemagne may have been the first Holy Roman Emperor but what did he do to dispel the 'Dark Ages'? Mary Alberi looks at the work of his leading court intellectual, Alcuin, and how his hopes for a 'New Athens' in the Aachen palace school promoted the Carolingian Renaissance.

Byzantium: The Emperor's New Clothes?

Alexander Kazhdan considers the influence of totalitarianism and meritocracy in the Byzantine empire – and its relationship to the growth of the Russian and other successor states in the East.