Social

As Fidel Castro finally hands over the reins of power after forty-nine years, Michael Simmons finds his country poised between past and future.

The civil rights leader was shot dead on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4th, 1968.

Sue Donnelly introduces the archives of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and a project to make them accessible to a wider audience.

What did Britain and the Britons mean to the Anglo-Saxons, and what did it mean to be their ruler? 

Britain’s concerns over binge drinking are nothing new says Luci Gosling, who describes how the brewing industry united to wreck Asquith’s Licensing Bill of 1908.

Peter J. Beck describes the work of Honoré Daumier, born 200 years ago this month, which provided an early visual documentary newsreel and commentary on the key political and social movements in mid-nineteenth century France.

Jeremy Goldberg examines three stories of disputed marriages and discusses definitions of consent and how they impinged on a medieval woman’s right to marry when and whom she chose.

Mark Juddery introduces The Story of the Kelly Gang, possibly the first-ever feature film, now largely lost, that was made a hundred years ago in Australia about the notorious outlaw with the unusual body-armour. Hugely popular when it was first released in 1906, it spawned a genre of bushranger movies and epitomized the significance of the Kelly legend in Australian cultural identity.