Volume 76 Issue 8 August 2026

Alternative Histories: Wembley, 1966

12th Bengal Cavalry, the winning polo team, Peshawar Tournament, 1898. British Library/Bridgeman Images.

King of Games: Politics, Polo, and the Raj

Indian teams besting British sides on the polo field threatened to undermine the colonial enterprise.

Members of the Iranian armed forces commemorate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire, Persepolis, October 1971. Popperfoto/Getty Images.

‘The Shah’s Party and the Iranian Revolution That Followed’ review

In The Shah’s Party and the Iranian Revolution That Followed Robert Templer reveals the hubristic high point of the Pahlavi regime’s self-regard.

General Pinochet’s Return

Redressing the crimes of Pinochet’s regime has been a hard-fought and often contested process. Chile’s current presidency has revealed how easily progress can be reversed.

An Allegory of the Triumph over Heresy, with St. Domenic to the Fore, Abraham van Diepenbeeck, c.1650-60. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain.

‘The Cheese and the Worms’ by Carlo Ginzburg review

A new translation marks the 50th anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg’s pioneering microhistory The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller.

King Arthur, miniature from Flores Historiarum by Matthew Paris, 1250-52. Chetham's Library/Bridgeman Images.

The Case for King Arthur

Often dismissed as a myth, was there a real man behind the legend of King Arthur?

‘Hail Germania!’, First World War sheet music, Josef Spary, 1916. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Public Domain.

‘Charismatic Nations’ by Joep Leerssen review

Charismatic Nations: A Cultural History of Nationalism in Europe from 1800 to the Present by Joep Leerssen looks to art and not politics for the birth of the nation.

Albert Camus, 1947. Roger-Viollet/TopFoto.

The Absurdity of Albert Camus

For Albert Camus understanding the past and predicting the future may hinge on one fact: history is absurd.

Middleham, Yorkshire, Peter DeWint, undated. Yale Center for British Art. Public Domain.

‘This Dark Night’ by Deborah Lutz review

This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë by Deborah Lutz vividly reconstructs the world that produced Wuthering Heights. Are there limits to this approach?

‘Effects of the Explosion at the House of Detention Clerkenwell Seen from Within the Prison Yard’, 1867. Museum of London.

The Clerkenwell Outrage

The first Irish Republican bomb detonated on English soil was not intended as an act of terrorism, but its impact – and death toll – sent shockwaves through Victorian London.