Social

When Samuel Pepys’ diary was first published 200 years ago it was an instant hit, but rumours soon spread about what had been cut and why.

In Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain, Sam Wetherell discovers a city of slavery, ships, soccer, and socialism, whose fortunes rose and fell with the tide.

With North Vietnam’s victory in 1975, its southern counterpart ceased to exist. What happened to South Vietnam?

Padraic X. Scanlan levels familiar charges against British colonialism and capitalism in Rot: A History of the Irish Famine. Is there more to the story?

Renaissance Florence had a problem: it wanted female sex workers, but it also needed to offer them a way out. The solution was a new brothel district – and a nunnery for former prostitutes

When VE Day finally came in May 1945 it was met with relief, exhaustion, and cynicism. Was the Second World War in Europe really over?

The Soldier’s Reward: Love and War in the Age of the French Revolution and Napoleon by Jennifer Ngaire Heuer and Matchmaking and the Marriage Market in Postrevolutionary France by Andrea Mansker reveal romance in a time of revolt.

As Late Imperial China sought to rebuild as a modern state from the ashes of war, a new national post office was born.

A tool for tyrants... or their undoing? The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages by Shane Bobrycki crafts a history for the medieval mob.

Two rare textile discoveries connect 18th-century Barbadian schoolgirls to England.