Recently published
The Extraordinary Rise and Inexplicable Decline of Lit & Phils
The Literary and Philosophical Society was once ubiquitous, allowing minds to meet and views to collide. Their disappearance has left more questions than answers.
‘Cunning Folk’ by Tabitha Stanmore review
Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore gives a human face to magic in medieval and early modern England.
Japan, the West and the Treaty of Versailles
At the outset of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Japan enjoyed a seat at the top table, but the vexed issue of racial equality set it and its notional Western allies on different paths.
National Spirit and the 1900 Olympics
The Paris Olympics of 1900 celebrated not just sporting excellence, but France’s might.
A Dangerous Game on the Jacobean Stage
For nine days Thomas Middleton’s A Game at Chess was the greatest box office phenomenon of the English Renaissance. Then a warrant was issued for his arrest.
On the Spot: Joseph Hone
‘The most important lesson history has taught me? Destroy your drafts and personal papers, because one day a graduate student will comb through them looking for incriminating titbits.’
The Ethiopians Who Changed Rome
A community of Ethiopian monk-scholars in Renaissance Rome brought their learning, language and liturgy into the heart of the Roman Church.
Verlaine Shoots Rimbaud
On 10 July 1873, decadent duo Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud’s poetic frenzy ended with a gunshot.
‘Liberty, Equality, Fashion’ by Anne Higonnet review
In Liberty, Equality, Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution, Anne Higonnet brings three dedicated followers of fashion to the fore.