Cultural

Mark Jones looks at the cultural power of messages on medals.

Japan had two great infatuations with the West: in the 1870s and during the American occupation of 1945-52. Forsaking traditional isolationism, Japan welcomed Western ideas and customs with open arms, and according to Jean-Pierre Lehmann, what resulted was not an ersatz Western culture but one that retained a distinct national identity

Graham Seal explores the life and legend of Ned Kelly.

Popular art in the form of cartoons, caricatures and simple engravings offered great potential for political propaganda as the revolutionary leaders discovered. 

The tango was to Argentina what jazz was to New Orleans. As Simon Collier explains, it swept the world in the pre-First World War era and Carlos Gardel was its star.

Lawrence A. Clayton on the Chinese labourers who came to work in Peru, often in appalling conditions.

The evolution of a saint and his dragon.

At first the English withstood the Norman attack of 1066. But soon they succumbed to the invaders, as did their virile language of record. An article by H.R. Loyn.

J. H. M. Salmon looks at Romantic literary interpretations of Oliver Cromwell.