Cultural

Richard Wilkinson finds much to enjoy in the opening volumes of a comprehensive new series on British social history.

Robert Pearce has been pleasantly surprised at the quality of a new textbook.

Viv Saunders reveals how sport and society are intertwined.

R. E. Foster sifts myth from reality in the life of the 'Lady with the Lamp'.

History tells us that the West’s embrace of liberal values was not inevitable and is unlikely to last, says Tim Stanley.

Courtly love, celebrated in numerous songs and poems, was the romantic ideal of western Europe in the Middle Ages. Yet, human nature being what it is, the realities of sexual desire and the complications it brings were never far away, says Julie Peakman.

The fools of the early Tudor court were likely to have been people with learning disabilities as a new project demonstrates, says Suzannah Lipscomb.

Despite numerous attempts by radicals to reform the calendar, it is usually commerce that decides the way we measure time, as Matthew Shaw explains.

History Today was launched in 1951, the year of the Festival of Britain. Barry Turner challenges Arthur Marwick’s impressions, first published in 1991, of the year that austerity Britain glimpsed a brighter future.

Medieval knights were the sporting superstars and military heroes of their day, who performed before an adoring public in the tournament. Nigel Saul explains their appeal.