Ferrante of Naples the Statecraft of a Renaissance Prince
David Abulafia reassesses the life and motives of a notorious ruler and the complex web of Renaissance diplomacy involving him which led up to the Italian wars.
Political
Commemorating Charles I - King and Martyr?
The way in which the church commemoration of King Charles I's 1649 execution became a potent instrument in the political war of words after the Restoration is examined, and the history of the king's execution and the clergy's promotion of the event are discussed.
Clinton and Jefferson: The Teflon Syndrome?
Elizabeth Marvick highlights the similarities of allegation and opposition to two embattled American presidents - Thomas Jefferson and Bill Clinton.
Mary Tudor and the Re-Catholicisation of England
Has our image of Henry VIII's elder daughter as 'Bloody Mary', burning Protestants and unhappily married to Philip of Spain, clouded our assessment of how close she came to restoring the old religion?
'American All': Reforging a National Brotherhood, 1876-1917
Cecilia O'Leary looks at how national identity was repaired following the fratricidal traumas of the American Civil War.
Good Friends and Brothers? Francis I and Henry VIII
Glenn Richardson profiles the French king's relationship with Henry VIII and the cultural PR and diplomacy that went with it.
Beaverbrook - Sickert's 'Political Portrait'
Richard Shone looks at the foray into portraiture of a leading British artist and reflects on the tensions of painter-patron relations in the cultural climate of 1930s Britain.
Theory and Practice: Democracy and the Philosophers
Can democracy, past or present, benefit from the ministrations of the philosophers? Benjamin Barber observes the claim that Plato's persona of Socrates is a democratic one.
Splitting Images: Communication in Classical Athens
E. Hall looks at the methods used in ancient Greece to court public opinion in the light of the modern media and messages of democratic politics today.
‘Snarling Roughhouse’: The 1924 Democratic Convention
A 17-day political dogfight at the 1924 Democratic National Convention revealed the faultlines in American society, from prohibition to Protestantism to the shadow of the Ku Klux Klan.