Britain

Cycling Eighty Years Ago

David Rubinstein describes a change in social habits when the new bicycle replaced the old Penny Farthing.

Commissioner Lin and Opium

Chinese Emperors banned the importation of opium, writes M. Foster Farley, but it was smuggled into the country by East Indian traders and led to the Opium War of 1840.

Botanist Explorers of Two Continents

Plants have been hunted since the days of the Pharaohs, writes William Seymour; but, in more recent times, two resolute Scottish botanists led particularly adventurous and courageous lives.

A British Student Prince in Germany: 1913

John Wroughton describes how the Prince of Wales and his Oxford tutor paid two agreeable visits to Germany in 1913, from which he returned with a warm affection for the German people.

Vintage Liberals

David Hopkinson describes how the foundations of modern Britain were largely laid by Liberal intellectuals from 1906 onwards.