Cultural

Though he exercised little political influence, Victor Hugo’s genius and his ardent championship of liberty had made him a legendary figure long before his death.

The visit of the Baroque master in 1665, writes Michael Greenhalgh, coincided with a rejection of Italian influence by French taste.

In 1773, writes A. Lentin, the radical philosophe paid a difficult visit to his patroness in St Petersburg.

Revisiting one of the first historical studies in the developing ‘science’ of well-being. By Sandie McHugh and Jerome Carson.

Queen Victoria’s Consort was a man of exceptional intelligence; among his many interests, writes Winslow Ames, was the collection of early German and Italian paintings and the encouragement of contemporary artists.

J.T. Ward describes how romantic views of the Middle Ages and a dislike for the horrors of industrialism inspired an able group of young Conservatives in the House of Commons during the 1840s.

J.L. Carr describes how, in revolutionary France, the debonair delights of civilization were replaced by a more virtuous albeit often stale cultural climate.

Evelyn Howe takes the reader on a visit to private play-houses and their players during the later eighteenth century.

In the 1860s a group of the younger Samurai launched the Meiji revolution in the Emperor's name. This event, writes Henry McAleavy, helped convert Japan into a modern country, with Western fashions and techniques imposed upon the national habits of centuries.

Crevecoeur fought under Montcalm at Quebec in 1759 and, writes Stuart Andrews, afterwards settled in New York and Pennsylvania.