Social

Has the British family undergone an unparalleled breakdown since the 1960s, as is often claimed? Pat Thane argues that there never was a golden age of domestic bliss.

As Coronation Street celebrates half a century in the nation’s living rooms, Andrew Roberts looks at why an intensely parochial television series that has wilfully refused to acknowledge change is still going strong.

Richard Cavendish remembers the execution of a notorious murderer on November 23rd, 1910.

When Penguin Books was acquitted of obscenity for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a door was kicked open to the social revolution of the 1960s. Geoffrey Robertson discusses the impact of the trial, a defining moment in modern legal history.

The gulf between the religious ideals of US conservatives and those of the European Enlightenment is as wide as the Atlantic. Tim Stanley looks at the origins and the enduring legacy of the American revivalist tradition.

Amanda Vickery’s new series on the 18th-century home is part of an enlightened new strategy from the BBC, writes Paul Lay.

A century after the execution of Dr Crippen for the murder of his wife, Fraser Joyce argues that, in cases hingeing on identification, histories of forensic medicine need to consider the roles played by the public as well as by experts.

Peter Donaldson examines how the British people reacted to the various stages of the South African war of 1899-1902.

Court fashion, a love of birdsong and the pressures of being a king are some of the subjects discussed in letters between Philip II of Spain and his teenage daughters. Janet Ravenscroft explores the human side of one of Europe’s most powerful Renaissance monarchs.

America has struggled to reform public healthcare for over 100 years and now has a byzantine, costly system controlled by powerful, money-hungry interest groups. Can President Obama deliver reform?