Volume 71 Issue 12 December 2021

A Ventriloquist Act?

Recent studies show the benefits and limitations of giving voice to the thoughts of our predecessors. 

A ‘Creative Microhistory’ of a Medieval Manor

The distant past is not often illustrated with plentiful descriptions of everyday life. Instead, the picture has to be put together from different sources, piece by piece, like a jigsaw. But there are often still gaps, which can be filled with historically informed creativity. 

Can’t Go On

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, had aimed to bring new life to a system in which he believed until the last. 

Books of the Year 2021

Revolutionary France, lights out in the Ottoman Empire, gross obscenity, Napoleon’s gardens and the humble index: ten historians reflect on a year of reading.

Size Matters

In Georgian Britain, England’s ‘heaviest man’ became a celebrity, his likeness reproduced across an array of media.