Volume 71 Issue 1 January 2021

The great native historian of Africa was baptised by Pope Leo X on 6 January 1520.

Believing language would unify their struggling nation, Chinese officials began a project to create a national language and define what it meant to speak Chinese. 

The medieval insistence on clerical celibacy had dangerous and long-lasting consequences. 

‘I’d like to meet the 16th-century Leo Africanus’

Those immersed in history are never alone, even when the company they keep is invisible.

What to do when a good joke becomes bad taste.

How an individual act of resistance in 1850s’ New York led to the desegregation of the city’s transit system.

The dark side of Harry Houdini.

When widespread vaccination was introduced there were objections – some justified, some not. 

If we are to better understand the actions of men such as Hernán Cortés, we must place them in the context of a medieval world view that predated the nation state.