Cultural

Akbar Ahmed looks at the legacy of a Moorish past for the present Spain.

David Lowenthal looks at how landscape has shaped and reflects the English view of themselves.

New insights in Celtic history in Europe

Business with pleasure - Steven Gunn shows how the spectacle of the joust oiled the wheels of service and diplomacy as well as building up the court's image, not just for Henry VIII but for his dynasty-founding father as well.

William Sessions on the connections of the charismatic courtier-poet who in a short and ill-fated life bridged the aristocratic Renaissance cultures of the Continent and the lifestyle of Henry VIII's court.

Akbar Ahmed offers the most timely review of how history and stereotype have often combined to make Western Orientalism a hindrance rather than a help in mutual understanding between two cultures.

End or beginning? Catherine Hills discusses how recent archaeology is filling in the gaps in our knowledge of 5th-and 6th-century Britain, fuelling the debate about just how important marauding invaders were to the changes that followed the legion's departure.

Richard Cavendish gives a snapshot of the work of the Cinema Theatre Association

In the light of the revised interest in the Soviet cinema Richard Taylor questions whether our traditional view of its output after 1917 as mere uplift (dreary or otherwise) is justified.

Stephen Jones on Victorian things, trends and fashions.