Political

Richard Shone looks at the foray into portraiture of a leading British artist and reflects on the tensions of painter-patron relations in the cultural climate of 1930s Britain.

E. Hall looks at the methods used in ancient Greece to court public opinion in the light of the modern media and messages of democratic politics today.

A 17-day political dogfight at the 1924 Democratic National Convention revealed the faultlines in American society, from prohibition to Protestantism to the shadow of the Ku Klux Klan.

Bill Wallace looks at the mixed inheritance of democratic ideas in Mother Russia and beyond as possible auguries for the future of the regimes that have succeeded the Soviet Union.

Ellen Meiksins Wood analyses democracy's historical progress and tots up the balance sheet for the present day.

Barry Strauss looks at the contrasts and similarities between the city-states and the 'land of the free'.

Valery Rees surveys the life of the ruler who put 15th-century Hungary on the map, both culturally and geographically, but whose efforts may have put an intolerable strain on the body politic.

Susan Cole looks at how, though formally excluded from the political process, Athena's sisters nevertheless made their mark.

François Hartog on how urban living has coincided with the advocacy of popular rule from Plato through to Machiavelli, Rousseau and 20th-century sociologists.