Volume 66 Issue 8 August 2016

Frank Dikötter explains how the gradual opening of Chinese archives has revealed the appalling truth about Chairman Mao’s genocidal rule.

Men took up arms for many reasons during the Hundred Years War. In the wake of new research into soldiers’ lives, Nicholas Gribit reveals how the promise of fortune was as big a draw as any.

While 16th- and 17th-century English pamphleteers portrayed those accused of witchcraft as impoverished and elderly, court records suggest that it was just as likely to be powerful women who stood trial.

What role was the BBC to play if the cold war became hot? For the first time, the corporation has given detailed access to its plans for a Wartime Broadcasting Service following a nuclear attack. Paul Reynolds reveals its secrets.