Volume 65 Issue 7 July 2015

The Conference on African Peoples

A multiracial community of activists began organising public meetings and rallies in the 1930s, paving the way for the Pan-African Congress of 1945.

The Myth of 'Moral' Food

There was no period in the past when people did not try to manipulate nature in order to provide a more varied and nutritious diet, argues Annie Gray. We will need similarly ingenious methods in the future.

Magna Carta: The Atlantic Crossing

In no country is Magna Carta held in greater reverence than in the United States. Alexander Lock examines its crucial role in the founding of the republic’s political and legal system and looks at the Charter’s transatlantic transition.

Reinterpreting the Weimar Republic

The archetypal image of the Weimar Republic is one of political instability, economic crisis and debauched hedonism. Colin Storer challenges the clichéd view of the Republic as a tragic failed state.

Simon de Montfort and the Origins of Parliament

Just half a century on from Magna Carta, a radical noble, part idealist, part megalomaniac, came into conflict with King John’s son, Henry III. The result, argues Nigel Saul, was a form of assembly which shapes English political life to this day.

The Road to Runnymede

Magna Carta was born of the loss of King John’s French territories and his increasingly desperate – and expensive – attempts to regain them.