On Crime & Punishment
'They do this for their Christian faith and for the saving of souls' – as Russians travelled west, they began to notice moral divides between the countries they visited and their own society.
Europe
Russia and Europe
Paul Dukes sets the scene for a series of articles on the rise of Russia from the seventeenth century.
The Spanish Ulcer
A book on the history of the Peninsular War and another review of a title on Portugal as seen by British Diplomats and traders.
Agesilaos & the Crisis of Sparta
Though hymned by writers as an exemplum of Sparta's virtue, was Agesilaos the author as well as the spectator of her decline and fall?
Greece, Ancient and Modern - Subsistence and Survival
'Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose'... many of the agricultural practices described in the art and literature of classical Greece persist to the present day.
Barricades against Fascism: The Popular Front in Europe
Paul Preston and Helen Graham discuss the tension developing in the Europe of the 30s as the Left attempted to unite against the growth of Fascism and the bloody timetable of political collapse, uprisings and mutiny that transformed a half-successful coup d'etat into a protracted civil war.
Second Thoughts on the Anglo-Portugese Alliance 1661-1808
Port wine and a queen for England from Braganza - commercial and cultural links strengthened the alliance steadily during the Age of Reason.
'A Particular Service' - Beresford's Peninsular War
Resistance to Napoleon in the Iberian peninsula gave a little-known English general a unique opportunity to remould the Portuguese army.
Famine in the Ancient Mediterranean
'Bread and circuses' - the control and availability of grain was the key to political power and social stability in the ancient world.
England in Europe 1066-1453
Nigel Saul takes a look at the significance of the Norman conquest.