Social

H.G. Nicholas asks whether Dickens' portrayal of the USA of the 1840s, found in Martin Chuzzlewit, is a fair one.

In the second of a two part series, G.D.H. Cole analyses and compares several sets of census data to guage an accurate portrait of class demographics in Britain.

D.W. Brogan pays a historical visit to the city of light in the first half of the twentieth century.

Celebration of Christmas was curtailed by England’s Puritan republic but the methods and results varied considerably.

J.A.R. Pimlott studies the development of the Christmas Spirit—from Pagan Saturnalia to Victorian family party

In an age of opportunity, G.E. Fussell describes how the Elizabethan farmer lived under pioneer conditions.

Sir Lewis Namier shows how, through the growth of mining and the coal-trade, the social and economic character of North-Eastern England was entirely transformed.

In these extracts Arthur Bryant describes the glorious reign of King Alfred, 871-99

Stephen Coleman traces the history of smoking, from its American beginnings to the twentieth century mass market.

Sarah Wise admires an assessment of lunacy in 19th-century London.