Europe

Popular Revolts in Normandy

The popular revolts of 1578-79 and 1586-89 in Normandy were triggered by an unruly military presence and the high level of royal fiscal exactions. Joan Davies shows how the revolts were exploited by the nobility in their struggle with Henri III, who met the threat thus posed with force.

Jews and Judaism in the Ancient World

Neither the Greeks nor the Romans paid much attention to the achievements or customs of the peoples that they conquered. As Jenny Morris shows here, in the case of their Jewish subjects this indifference caused problems that had both religious and political repercussions.

The Cape Verde Islands

Christopher Fyfe looks at how, in 1975 the Cape Verde Island gained their independence from the Portuguese after five hundred years of colonial administration that left them one of the poorest states in the world.

Colonies at the 1900 World Fair

Mysterious, exotic, colourful.... this was the view of their colonies that the 1900 Paris Fair presented to the French. William Schneider argues that this image was to persist and hamper an understanding of colonial development.

The Myth of Santiago

James Marshall-Cornwall explores how, in the Middle Ages, devout pilgrims journeyed to Santiago de Compostela in the belief that they were paying homage at the tomb of Spain's patron saint.