![‘Hail! Thou Production most uncommon. Woman half man and man half Woman!’, frontispiece to An Epistle from Mademoiselle D’Eon to the Right Honorable L[or]d M[ansfiel]d, 1778.](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_list/public/2024-12/deon_libel_history_today_0.jpeg?itok=NPFoCE7p)
The Libellous Letters of the Chevalier d’Eon
Chevaliere d’Eon or Chevalier d’Eon? An 18th-century legal dispute between two French spies unravelled into a public battle about identity.
History Today
Kashmir: Prisoner of History?
Caught between the antagonistic states of India and Pakistan, Kashmir is stuck in geopolitical limbo. Its location – and its history – threaten to keep it there.
New Year, Old Books
A new book for the new year is an old British custom, but an old book can be even better.
Rum and Reform: The Party on Norfolk Island
As convicts celebrated Queen Victoria’s birthday on remote Norfolk Island, debates raged over the purpose of punishment and the merits of Alexander Maconochie’s project of moral reform.
‘Lower than the Angels’ by Diarmaid MacCulloch review
Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch reminds us that when it comes to sexuality and gender, scripture is often contradictory.
The Failure of the Leipzig War Crimes Trials
An attempt to prosecute German war criminals in 1921 failed to such an extent that the entire enterprise is largely forgotten. What went wrong?
Absinthe: From Green Fairy to Moral Panic
The remarkable fall of absinthe: from 19th-century ‘Green Fairy’ to scourge of society.
On the Spot: Lucy Noakes
‘What is the most common misconception about my field? That the history of war is the same as military history.’
The UN Declaration of Human Rights
On 10 December 1948, after months of negotiation led by Eleanor Roosevelt, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed by the UN General Assembly.
Sarah Mae Flemming and the Forgotten Women of Civil Rights
Who were the women who fought the decisive battle against racial segregation in the American South?