Volume 50 Issue 9 September 2000

Marion Shoard describes the centuries-long battle waged by Britons for the right to roam over the hills and vales of their island.

Henrietta Harrison sees the Boxer Movement through the eyes of an ordinary Chinese man.

Larry Gragg describes the earthquake that shattered Jamaica in 1692, and reviews the complex lessons that preachers drew from it.

Patricia Cleveland-Peck on the part played by a French cafe in the Sussex Network operations during the Second World War.

Luke S.K. Kwong tells the story of the American artist who was invited to paint the portrait of the celebrated Empress Dowager of China after the Boxer Rising.

Barry Cunliffe tells how, aged nine, his first encounter with Roman remains in a Somerset field determined his ambition to become an archaeologist.

John Miller describes the state of the British kingdoms as James Stewart waits to become monarch of the entire archipelago.

David Gaimster reveals the origins and contents of the British Museum's Secretum, a hidden repository of artefacts deemed pornographic and unfit for public gaze by Victorian curators.

Napoleon's forces surrendered to the British in Malta on September 5th, 1800.

Taylor Downing and Andrew Johnston seek the truth behind the legend of the Spitfire.