Volume 76 Issue 9 September 2026

Crimped by the Prince of Shanghai

Sailors looking for work in the 19th century risked getting crimped – or shanghaied – and caught in a whirlpool of exploitation and corruption.

‘The Traveller’ by Andrea Wulf review

The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and His Search for Humanity by Andrea Wulf brings the most enlightened of Enlightenment radicals into the mainstream.

Petitions, Puritans, and the Civil War

Early Stuart England saw the emergence of mass petitioning. These expressions of collective grievance would advance popular politics, uncover division, and lay the road to war.

What is an Information Age?

From the printing press to the internet, the spread of information has changed the world. How do we recognise an age defined by it?