Recently published

Once maligned as a record ‘of the dullest kind’, a 1535 audit of Church wealth – the Valor ecclesiasticus – offers a unique view of England’s religious, social and cultural life just months after the break with Rome.

In March 1824 the East India Company declared war on Burma, the opening salvo in a series of conflicts that would see one empire fall, another expand and leave divisive wounds still felt today.

Alongside the great successes of Roman architectural feats were expensive failures. Who was to blame? 

Reading It Wrong: An Alternative History of Early Eighteenth-Century Literature by Abigail Williams argues that misunderstanding popular literature was a sign of its success.

General elections in Britain were once weeks-long affairs of corruption and chaos. The shift to one-day polling was slow.

Europe panicked when astrologers predicted a huge flood in 1524. When it failed to appear, astrology had to defend itself.

On 7 February 1497, the Piagnoni of Florence set sin ablaze in the original ‘bonfire of the vanities’

Guido Alfani’s As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West explores how history’s wealthiest men made their fortunes, but says little about why they did so.

‘I used to doubt that the changes undergone in western Europe’s “feudal revolution” were substantial; now, I’m inclined to accept that they were.’

Hollywood adored child stars like Jackie Coogan and Diana Serra Cary, but failed to protect them.