Social

Murder on the Métro

In the years leading up to the Second World War, France was riven by political division as extremes of left and right vied for power. Annette Finley-Croswhite and Gayle K. Brunelle tell the tragic and mysterious story of Laetitia Toureaux, a young woman swept up in the violent passions of the time.

Drink: The British Disease?

Britain has had a long and sometimes problematic relationship with alcohol. James Nicholls looks back over five centuries to examine the many, often unsuccessful, attempts to reform the nation’s drinking habits.

Africans in the Indian Mutiny

For centuries, Africans were shipped to the Indian subcontinent and sold as slaves to regional rulers. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones tells the story of those who went to Lucknow to serve the Nawab of Oudh and who joined the Indian Mutiny when he was deposed by the British. For this allegiance their descendants, whom she has traced, still pay a price.

Between the Lines: First World War Correspondence

The messages sent by British soldiers of the First World War to their loved ones back home have long been valued for what they tell us about daily life in the trenches. But their authors were often at pains not to reveal too much of the horror they endured. Anthony Fletcher considers what these documents reveal about the men’s inner lives.

Return of the Fallen

The repatriation of British soldiers’ bodies from Afghanistan goes against a long tradition of burying the war dead in some foreign field and brings the conflict closer to home, writes Nick Hewitt.