Britain

John Wroughton describes how the Prince of Wales and his Oxford tutor paid two agreeable visits to Germany in 1913, from which he returned with a warm affection for the German people.

David Hopkinson describes how the foundations of modern Britain were largely laid by Liberal intellectuals from 1906 onwards.

During the Peninsular War, writes Michael Glover, British and French often treated one another with humanity and courtesy.

David Lance on the history of food in the Royal Navy, from canteen messing to professional catering.

Michael Langley describes how, until a mid-eighteenth century innovation, navigators seldom knew exactly where they were when at sea.

Since ownership passed from Spain to Britain in 1713, the Rock of Gibraltar has played an ambiguous – sometimes unwelcome role – in British history.

During the forty-one years he spent in China, writes Gerald Morgan, Thomas Francis Wade learned to understand the Chinese mind and culture without being absorbed by it.

Iris Macfarlane describes how the East India Company in 1714-17 sought to flatter the Mughal Emperor.

‘Larger than a peahen and smaller than a peacock’, Jahangir wrote in 1612. Geoffrey Powell describes how the bird reached England from America some decades before the Indian knew it.

J. LaVerne Anderson describes how the post of British Ambassador to the rulers of France has been a difficult assignment, and not only in the eighteenth century.