Servants on the Grand Tour
An army of help accompanied wealthy British sightseers on their 18th-century sojourns across the Continent. What was it like to travel as a servant on the Grand Tour?
Cultural
Peace Talks: Letter from America 80 Years On
Eighty years ago the BBC tried to remedy postwar Anglo-American friction with Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America.
Bringing Down the Curtain on the Touring Theatre
For most of the late 16th and early 17th century, theatre companies touring England were welcomed in provincial towns. But as tastes changed, players found themselves take second billing to moral concerns.
‘The Great Exchange’ by Joad Raymond Wren review
The Great Exchange: Making the News in Early Modern Europe by Joad Raymond Wren looks to the 15th century for the birth of the press.
Basque Identity and French Unity
Fearing the loss of regional identity, at the end of the 19th century, the French Basques invented a cultural tradition – but did that make them a threat to national unity?
‘The Graces’ by Breeze Barrington review
The Graces: The Extraordinary Untold Lives of Women at the Restoration Court by Breeze Barrington looks beyond the warming pan to the real Mary of Modena.
‘The Alienation Effect’ by Owen Hatherley review
The Alienation Effect: How Central European Émigrés Transformed the British Twentieth Century by Owen Hatherley follows in the footsteps of those who fled fascism.
‘The Celts: A Modern History’ by Ian Stewart review
Historians may no longer talk of a single Celtic culture, but in The Celts: A Modern History Ian Stewart crafts a unified history of a changing idea.
Pompey’s Greatest Show on Earth
Rome’s first theatre was an enormous spectacle intended to glorify Pompey’s successes. Was it all bread and circuses?
Ronald Knox’s Radio Revolution
On 16 January 1926, the BBC broke the news that a murderous mob was storming the capital. Broadcasting the Barricades wasn’t supposed to be a hoax, but it was an effective one.