Cultural

During a period of Austrian decline as a great power, writes Tudor Edwards, Vienna flourished in an atmosphere of expansive gaiety.

Between the Congress of Vienna and the Year of Revolutions, Vienna enjoyed a homely, idyllic period of gaiety, security and peace. In 1848, writes Tudor Edwards, the idyll was shattered by bloody revolts throughout the Empire.

The growth of the machine has tended to create a single world-society, explains Patrick Gordon Walker.

Alan Haynes describes the Flemish weavers imported to London in the reign of James I and how, throughout the seventeenth century, their work continued.

Among Johnson’s principal aims, he wrote, was to produce a volume, ‘for the use of such as aspire to exactness of criticism or elegance of style’. H.P. Collins assesses whether he succeeded.

Stephen Usherwood describes how the crisis of 1926, which silenced the British Press, was a challenge to the broadcasting authorities.

Joanna Richardson describes how after he had moved to Paris, Jacques Offenbach, the son of a cantor at the synagogue in Cologne, created an operatic epitome of the Second Empire.

In his career as rake and satirist, writes John Redwood, Rochester illustrated both the vices and virtues of the Restoration court.

Peter Stansky & William Abrahams describe how, after Tennyson’s death, the problem of finding a new Poet Laureate perturbed successive British governments.

The Republic of Guinea has been the scene over the centuries of several attempts at state-building. Basil Davidson records how the memory of past achievements strongly influences West Africa today.