Britain

Scrooge and Albert

Christine Lalumia sees the 1840s as the key moment in the creation of the modern celebration of Christmas.

Edmund Gosse and the Victorian Nude

Jason Edwards takes a fresh look at attitudes to the nude in Victorian art, to coincide with Tate Britain's major exhibition on the subject opening this month.

The Body Politic: Diseases and Discourses

Roy Porter opens our new series on Picturing History, based on a series of lectures organised in conjunction with Reaktion Books, and shows how 18th-century images of the medical profession flow over into the work of political caricaturists.

Crime and Justice in 19th-Century England

How far, asks R.D. Storch, did the reforms in the system of law enforcement, and the detection, trial and punishment of criminals introduced in the nineteenth century make for better order and a real reduction in crime?

For England, See Wales

Robin Evans shows that the neglect of the history of Wales, and of other small nations, impoverishes our historical understanding.