Jonathan Conlin

At the beginning of the 20th century the Great Powers competed for the right to extract the vast oil reserves around the Iraqi city of Mosul. The motivation – and prize – was energy security. 

The life and thought of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, and the competing claims for his legacy. 

Jonathan Conlin finds a surprising story of Anglo-French exchange behind the frothing petticoats and high kicks of this most Parisian of dances.

Jonathan Conlin considers a 1990 article on the past, present and future of history broadcasting, whose pessimistic forecasts have not quite come to pass.

In the mid-18th century – at the height of the power struggle between France and England and the political ferment of both nations – a French spy with a peculiar personal agenda came to prominence in London. Jonathan Conlin tells his story.

Jonathan Conlin asks what the National Gallery has meant to the cultural and civic life of Britain since its foundation in 1824.

Jonathan Conlin reads 1066 And All That, a book that served as a point of departure to so many people, seventy-five years after its first publication.

Jonathan Conlin considers the history of heritage panics, from relics to Raphaels.