Political

Horatio Gates, George Washington’s Rival

Horatio Gates, the victor of Saratoga, had military designs that went unfulfilled, writes Max M. Mintz; both to invade Canada and displace Washington as Continental Commander. 

Horace Greeley, 1811-1872

Louis C. Kleber profiles the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1872; a self-made man who combined lofty ideals with many eccentric prejudices.

Gilbert Burnet: Bishop and Historian

The author of the History of My Own Time was both a keen churchman and a compulsive writer. Mary Delorme describes how Burnet's style, whether graphic, humorous or pompous, was usually as free and expansive as the historian himself.

George Smith of Coalville

During the Victorian Age, writes Courtney Dainton, when many social reformers came from the upper classes, Smith was a philanthropist who had himself experienced the hardships of the very poor.

Edmund Burke’s Negro Code

Though all his life Burke fought against injustice, cruelty and oppression, his attitude towards the slave-trade was at times ambiguous. Yet, writes Robert W. Smith, the great writer was the first statesman in Britain or Ireland to produce a plan for ending it.

Dividing Ireland, 1912-1914

John Stocks Powell describes how conflict between Nationalists and Unionists was still unhealed when the First World War began.

Demosthenes: Statesman and Patriot

Stephen Usher looks back at the life of a leading Athenian orator and Idealist during the city’s long war with Macedonia and its Greek allies.