Volume 62 Issue 11 November 2012

Humiliating, painful and reminiscent of crucifixion, the British army’s Field Punishment No 1 fuelled public outrage during the First World War, as Clive Emsley explains.

Roger Hudson expands on an image of Russian ships destroyed by the Japanese at Port Arthur, 1904.

Jacob Middleton finds that, far from being a relic of a cruel Victorian past, corporal punishment became more frequent and institutionalised in 20th-century England.

Since the 1980s the American family has evolved towards greater diversity and complexity. Yet, paradoxically, it is the essentially conservative nuclear family forged in the 1950s that continues to hold sway as a touchstone in US politics and culture, says Tim Stanley.

Hanoverian precedents for the wayward behaviour of royal younger brothers.

Edward III’s 700th anniversary is a suitable moment to celebrate one of England’s greatest monarchs, says Ian Mortimer.

Richard C. Hall looks at the bloody conflicts in south-eastern Europe which became the blueprint for a century of conflict in the region.

Sarah Mortimer looks at the historiography of what followed the British Civil Wars: the Republic led by Oliver Cromwell.

Panikos Panayi explores attitudes to German prisoners interned during the First World War.