Violence in Medieval monasteries, winning an election in Ancient Rome, why Uruguay legalised duelling, East German solidarity with North Korea, Tudor libel and the politics of forgiveness.
Plus: reviews, opinion, crossword and much more!
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Uruguay was the only nation where fighting a duel in defence of honour was perfectly legal for most of the 20th century. Why?
Meant to live a life of perfect peacefulness and contemplation, in reality monks were human and fallible. How violent could life in the medieval cloister be?
Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women and God’s Own Gentlewoman bring the real world of medieval women out of the margins.
The Cold War forged new international relationships in which physical distance seemed overcome by ideological proximity. In North Korea, East Germany found a fellow traveller – and a fellow victim.
In The Writers’ Castle: Reporting History at Nuremberg, Uwe Neumahr discovers that it wasn’t just the men in the dock who had scandalous social lives and hidden agendas.
As rude rhymes and rumours threatened reputations, the Elizabethan government attempted to regulate barbed language.
How the first Conservative leadership election modernised the party in the 1960s.
Ancient Roman election advice suggested some uncomfortable campaign strategies. Evidence from Pompeii suggests many candidates followed it enthusiastically.
Can The Last Dynasty: Ancient Egypt from Alexander the Great to Cleopatra and The Fall of Egypt and the Rise of Rome: A History of the Ptolemies fashion a finale for the pharaohs?
Misfit, Old West villain or tragic hero of the O.K. Corral: who was the real Doc Holliday?
The ancient stones of churches are portals to the past. Each new generation becomes a custodian.
Where fraught national histories are concerned, do policies of remembrance and education work, or is it better to wipe the slate clean?
In Patria: Lost Countries of South America, Laurence Blair explores nine nations, dissolved or imagined, and what they tell us about Latin America.
The First World War revealed the bad state of Britain’s teeth. Intervention was required to keep the nation biting fit.
An enfant terrible shook up Renaissance medicine by denouncing experts and debunking accepted wisdom. Was Paracelsus as radical as he seemed?
Robert Clive’s death has long been attributed to suicide. What is the evidence?
Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes by William M. Schniedewind asks what authorship meant to the hidden hands behind the Old Testament.
When paying off the Vikings failed to yield lasting peace, on 13 November 1002 king Æthelred ordered the slaughter of England’s Danes instead.
November 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the first passenger trains between London and Paris. What does the history of the Channel Tunnel tell us about Britain’s relationship with its neighbours?
‘What is the most common misconception about my field? That China has “5,000 years” of continuous history.’
