Volume 72 Issue 1 January 2022

Excavation of the Taplow burial mound, 19th century © The Trustees of the British Museum.

The Hills Have Eyes

Is the Buckinghamshire countryside tame commuter belt or wild border-country? It depends when you visit.

Border crossing between the USSR and Estonia in the village of Komarovka

Do You Exist?

The nightmarish power of the Soviet passport.

Chips Channon, photographed in 1930 by Howard Coster. Wiki Commons.

What Chips did Next

A ringside seat to British domestic politics, from Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler in October 1938 to the fall of Mussolini in July 1943.

The Young Crusaders

Inspired by the fashion for Boy Scout groups, Lord Beaverbrook started his own youth movement in support of his pro-Empire campaign.

Ahmad Massoud (right) with adviser Abdullah Abdullah at his HQ, Charikar, Afghanistan, 1996.

Before the Taliban

Reporting from the frontlines of the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union.

kolkhoz [collective farm] women working in a field, 1930s.

Loveless Letters

In 1935 Stalin declared ‘life has become better’. This was clearly not the case for everyone, but feelings had to be expressed very carefully.

Group of students, Samarkand, c.1910. Photographed by Sergeĭ Mikhaĭlovich Prokudin-Gorskiĭ. Library of Congress.

East Meets West

The historical currents that have shaped modern Central Asia.

Saving Face

The Renaissance face provided clues about the wealth and health of its owner. Those who had been disfigured were often mistreated, but to alter one’s appearance carried a stigma of its own.

Papyrus containing the diary of Merer from day 19 to 25 (read right to left) at the Wadi al-Jarf exhibition, Cairo Museum, 2016.

Monumental Record

Recently discovered papyri give unprecedented insight into the lives of the workers building the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The Qianlong Emperor in old age, Chinese, 18th century.

Missions and Misunderstandings

A tale of two translators, caught between civilisations.