This Month’s Magazine

An archive of handmade erotic objects made over two centuries of American history tells a story of hidden desire that has often been overlooked.

The Roman Stoic philosopher transformed into a symbol of Christian suffering. 

Are we adequately prepared for the toll this pandemic will take on mental health? 

A short story written in the earliest days of the First World War became an enduring symbol of British providence.

Holding court to the world in a hotel in Harlem.

Good references are invaluable, not just to give credit, but to build a map of the paths taken for research.

We ask four historians whether the demise of one of the 20th century’s superpowers was as inevitable as it now seems.

How medieval manuscripts reveal the reading communities of the early Middle Ages.

Children’s accounts of surviving the Holocaust.

The tolerant and worryingly modern Vikings.

Though horse racing was a symbol of British colonialism, it became a surprisingly inclusive pastime in China’s major International Settlement. 

Cuba’s built heritage owes a personal debt.

In the early years of Nazi rule, the vagueness of much Nazi ideology enabled many Germans to see in Nazism what they wanted to see.

The West Indies’ past is a key to our present.

‘The past has not gone.’

It took an Irish Gothic novelist to tie up centuries of demonic mythology surrounding this leathery, nocturnal mammal. 

In its earliest days, the East India Company was seen not as a threat to Asia’s elites, but as a means of strengthening their powers.

Cures and treatments have always offered potential riches to their inventors. But how was one supposed to know what worked and what didn’t?