Feature

Stephen (left) and Henry II, from Les Roys de Engeltere, Anglo-Norman manuscript, late 13th century.

Anarchy in the Waste Land

Following the death of Henry I, England was plunged into a civil war that reduced the country to a charred ruin. With the barons split between rival claimants, the people suffered.

Jamaican men, many of them former RAF servicemen, disembark Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks, 22 June 1948.

What Happens Back Home

The Windrush generation witnessed the Caribbean colonies from which they had emigrated achieve independence. Despite being an ocean away, they were not passive observers.

The Battle of Nájera, fought by King Peter against Henry Trastámara, 3 April 1367, from a 15th-century manuscript of Jean Froissart’s Chronicles.

England and Portugal: Friends to Friends, Enemies to Enemies

The Anglo-Portuguese alliance is the oldest of its kind. Concluded in June 1373, it has survived world wars, the rise and fall of empires and globalisation. How?

Witches’ Sabbath, by Francisco Goya, 1798.

A Discovery of Witch-Hunts

Witch-hunting happened when and where states were weak. What does a newly discovered witch-hunt in 1582 reveal about France and its ‘enlightened’ officials?

The first Aliyah, early Jewish immigrants to Ottoman Palestine, 1882-1903. World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo.

Herzl’s Troubled Dream: The Origins of Zionism

Zionism has been seen either as a movement of national liberation or as a form of settler colonialism. In reality, it is both.

An examination of an apothecary, French, early 18th century.

The Water of Life

Paris was flooded with Eau de Cologne during the early years of Napoleon’s rule. Everyone was using it and everyone was selling it.

‘A Continuous Performance Since Peter the Great’: Russia is shown manipulating conflict in the Balkans on the cover of Puck magazine, 7 October 1903. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

The Balkan Federation: Doomed to Disunity?

Talk of a Balkan federation became a hot topic at the end of the Ottoman Empire, eventually dying a death at the dawn of the Cold War. Was Europe’s ‘Little Orient’ destined to fall apart?

Sir Winston, his son Randolph, and grandson, Winston in coronation robes, by Toni Frissell, June 1953. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

Winston Churchill’s Gold Record

Once the Second World War was won, Winston Churchill had two preoccupations: preserving his place in posterity and making lots of money. If they could be achieved simultaneously, so much the better.

Jews captured during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are forced from their shelters and marched to the Umschlagplatz for deportation, 1943. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park. Public Domain.

The Warsaw Ghetto in Flames

The story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is typically one of defiance against the odds during the Holocaust. But what of those unable to fight?

Prester John on his throne in Ethiopia, from a map of East Africa in the Queen Mary Atlas, by Diogo Homem, Portuguese, 1558.

The King Who Wasn't There

Belief in Prester John, a lost Christian king ruling over a distant kingdom, gripped medieval Europe for half a millennium. Once seen as a saviour, he would become an adversary.