Volume 54 Issue 11 November 2004

Prisoners of Conscience

Juliet Gardiner looks at what it meant to refuse to fight or lend support to the war effort in the Second World War, the different reasons people asserted this right, and how their actions were interpreted in wartime Britain.

Read My Lips

Have politicians always been seen as liars? Mark Knights finds political spin at work in the early party politics of Queen Anne’s England.

School for Scoundrels

Andrew Cook describes how a chance encounter with Houdini had a profound impact on the methods of Britain’s leading First World War spymaster.

Temple Bar Comes Home

John Lucas rejoices at the return of Christopher Wren’s Temple Bar to London after more than 120 years of ‘exile’ in Hertfordshire.

Medieval Bridges

David Harrison considers one of the greatest but most underrated achievements of the medieval world: the hundreds of bridges that defined the British communication system up to the 19th century.