Volume 76 Issue 7 July 2026

Did live gibbeting ever take place in Britain? For the Victorians, the macabre question was a pressing one.

‘Who is the most overrated person in history? Henry VIII. Nasty piece of work and not as clever as he thought he was.’

The women who served as munitions workers during the First World War endured dismal conditions and a plethora of dangers: illness, injury, and death. Why are they barely remembered?

Capitalism: A Global History by Sven Beckert looks beyond the cities to the coffee and cotton that fuelled a global market.

In 1976 Boston saw the bicentennial celebrations of the United States as an opportunity to revitalise the city.

Liberal Worlds: James Bryce and the Democratic Intellect by H.S. Jones explores the lost world and writing of a formerly eminent Victorian.

On 1 July 1903 a publicity stunt for a sporting paper cycled into history as the first Tour de France.

Bede wrote that the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes invaded Britain en masse in the fifth century. Does the evidence agree?

Chaucer’s meadows are romantic landscapes of leisurely frolicking. But for medieval haymakers July meant a month of hard graft.

Blood Dawn: World War II and the Making of Modern Asia by Hans van de Ven finds Japanese grievance and ambition in the eye of the storm.