Social

Caroline Bingham tells the tale of how two self-made businessmen in their seventies became the unlikely progenitors of pioneering womens' colleges in Victorian England and America.

Francis Robinson takes a look at how Muslims breached the culture gap with the western world.

What was it really like to live in an English village at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign? To what extent was it a close-knit community? How deeply was it divided by wealth and religious belief? Was the village even an important part of the identity of its members? Susan Amussen addresses these questions in one village in East Anglia.

'Manners makyth man...' but as the 19th century dawned; English intellectuals became increasingly concerned with expanding education and 'useful knowledge' down to the lower orders.

Ralph Houlbrooke traces back the distinctive roots of the modern family.

Tony Aldous on a Worcestershire town whose natural resources brought the Romans there.

'Politics didn't matter': the ordinary Germany often insulated himself from the tensions of the Third Reich by concentrating on its work and leisure benefits.

'Trappings of popery and rags of the beast'. Mince-pies, mummers, holly and church services all fell victim to a determined Puritan attempt to stamp out the celebration of Christmas under the Commonwealth.

The legacy of empire brought nearly half a million blacks and Asians to Britain in the fifties in search of a better life.