Social

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.

This extract is the first of a series in which Dr. Arthur Bryant describes the evolution of the English Kingdom, through the invasions of Saxons, Danes and Normans, to its consolidation in medieval times.

From Stubbes' angry Anatomie of Abuses, Sydney Carter unveils a revealing portrait of Elizabethan fashions and pastimes, from high-heeled shoes to football, and from ruffs to dicing and dancing.

The observations of Edmond Geraud, a schoolboy pursuing his studies in Paris, throw fresh light on the stormiest years of the French Revolution.

Judith Flanders applauds Jerry White’s analysis of poverty in North London, first published in History Today in 1981.

Since the 1980s the American family has evolved towards greater diversity and complexity. Yet, paradoxically, it is the essentially conservative nuclear family forged in the 1950s that continues to hold sway as a touchstone in US politics and culture, says Tim Stanley.