Petticoat Alley: London’s Forgotten Women’s Clubs
Despite their reputation, London’s private members’ clubs have never been entirely for men.
Volume 74 Issue 5 May 2024
When Did Britain’s Age of Deference End – and Why?
An old-fashioned feature of a fusty, inegalitarian past, when did the British stop knowing their place?
The Death of a Mnemonist
Solomon Shereshevsky died on 1 May 1958. He dreamt of being a hero but achieved greatness of another kind.
‘The Emperor and the Elephant’ by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby review
The Emperor and the Elephant: Christians and Muslims in the Age of Charlemagne by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby surfaces Umayyad and Abbasid perspectives on their Frankish frenemies.
Nottinghamshire’s Bitter 1593 Election
A Nottinghamshire election in 1593 descended into farce, violence and, ultimately, futility.
Rehabilitating the East India Company’s Nabobs
The nabobs of the East India Company were considered violent, greedy and – worst of all in a time of Enlightenment – uneducated. Could their reputation as philistines be laundered?
Kapo Trials: How Israel Judged the Jewish Collaborators
The kapo trials of the early 1960s confronted a difficult question: how should Israel judge Jews accused of complicity in the Holocaust?
‘Bluestockings’ by Susannah Gibson review
Bluestockings: The First Women’s Movement by Susannah Gibson makes a case for 18th-century proto-feminism. Do the Bluestockings fit?
Orkney’s Saga: the Islands between Kingdoms
Is Orkney Scandinavian or Scottish? Having passed from the former to the latter during the Middle Ages, for centuries the Danish Crown sought to take the islands back.
Britons Caught in the French Revolution
As Revolution broke out and turned to Terror, British citizens living in France found themselves transformed from friends of liberty to an enemy within.