Today’s featured articles
Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II ruled with an iron fist, curtailing press freedom, promoting Islam and severing ties with the West. His similarities with Turkey’s current president, Erdoğan, have not gone unnoticed.
More than 100,000 people took up arms across the Holy Roman Empire in the spring of 1525. What drove them? And why were they ultimately crushed?
British traders in enslaved Africans found ways around the Slave Trade Act of 1807, while commerce flourished through the import of slave-grown cotton.
Most recent
Did Charles I Have to Die?
King Charles I’s execution in 1649 turned the world upside down – were other outcomes possible?
Have We Forgotten How to Listen to Lectures?
Unlike books and podcasts, lectures hold their audience captive – in person, at least.
‘Vietdamned’ by Clive Webb review
Can Vietdamned: How the World’s Greatest Minds Put America on Trial by Clive Webb rescue Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre’s activism from irrelevance?
James VI and I: Spinning the English Succession
Eager to be first in line, the astute James VI of Scotland responded to the question of the English succession with a war of words.
Bloody Mary and the Missing Heir
A male heir might have saved Queen Mary’s reign, and changed the shape of global Catholicism for good.
Britain’s Witnesses to Buchenwald
In April 1945 ten British politicians flew to Germany tasked with investigating the ‘truth’ about Buchenwald concentration camp.
‘The Celts: A Modern History’ by Ian Stewart review
Historians may no longer talk of a single Celtic culture, but in The Celts: A Modern History Ian Stewart crafts a unified history of a changing idea.
Brahmins: The Origins of India’s Priestly Caste
In the first millennium BC the Brahmin class organised as a community and assumed responsibility for learning the sacred Vedas. What are the origins of India’s priestly caste?
Current issue
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In the April issue:
The Library of Ashurbanipal, the African king at Edward VII’s coronation, the origins of India’s Brahmins, British witnesses to Buchenwald, spinning James I’s succession, and more.
Plus: reviews, opinion, crossword and much more!
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