Empire

T.A. Jenkins reviews the life and legacy of Benjamin Disraeli, statesman, novelist and man-about-town, on the bicentenary of his birth.

Bernard Porter argues that, through most of the nineteenth century, most Britons knew little and cared less about the spread of the Empire.

Geoff Quilley shows how the work of Hodges, official artist on Cook’s second voyage and subject of a major exhibition opening this month at the National Maritime Museum, sheds light on perceptions of the British Empire.

Richard Cavendish describes the French defeat in Indochina, on May 7th, 1954.

Charles Freeman offers a new theory to explain the positioning in Venice of the famous horses looted from Constantinople eight hundred years ago this month.

Damian O’Connor examines the motives of the man who started the conflict.

Anthony Cross describes the introduction of British games to Russia.

Martin Evans introduces a new series on the painful past.

Bill Rolston describes the impact of an erstwhile slave, who toured the Emerald Isle speaking out against slavery in 1845.

The taking of Kano by the West African Frontier Force, on February 3rd 1903, signalled the end of the Muslim fundamentalist Fulani empire in northern Nigeria.