Europe

F.G. Stapleton examines the momentous social and political consequences of Germany's spectacular economic growth.

The illegitimate child of Pope Alexander VI, Cesare Borgia thwarted a plot by his own men on December 31st, 1502.

As Gibraltar conducts a referendum on its future, Martin Murphy shows the degree to which its status was determined by rivalries between the 18th-century Great Powers.

Colin Jones discusses the art and artifice of the leading mistress of Louis XV.

Graham Darby explains how and why the creation of the Dutch state preceded the existence of Dutch national feeling.

Edgar Feuchtwanger warns against exaggerating the extent or significance of liberalism’s failure in German history.

In Europe Philhellenism – the romantic desire arising from admiration of ancient Greece to further understanding of all things Greek – had its origins in the sixteenth and seventeenth-century.

Cherry Barnett examines Godfrey Kneller's portrait of a young Chinese convert.

Anthony Head describes the ways in which an atrocity has been commemorated, sixty years on.

Richard Pflederer evaluates a vital tool of the age of discovery.