Social

Alan MacColl explores exactly what the word Britain meant, after the Romans had gone.

Britain’s concerns over binge drinking are nothing new says Luci Gosling, who describes how the brewing industry united to wreck Asquith’s Licensing Bill of 1908.

Peter J. Beck describes the work of Honoré Daumier, born 200 years ago this month, which provided an early visual documentary newsreel and commentary on the key political and social movements in mid-nineteenth century France.

Jeremy Goldberg examines three stories of disputed marriages and discusses definitions of consent and how they impinged on a medieval woman’s right to marry when and whom she chose.

Mark Juddery introduces The Story of the Kelly Gang, possibly the first-ever feature film, now largely lost, that was made a hundred years ago in Australia about the notorious outlaw with the unusual body-armour. Hugely popular when it was first released in 1906, it spawned a genre of bushranger movies and epitomized the significance of the Kelly legend in Australian cultural identity.

Gervase Phillips examines the extent and significance of an often misunderstood phenomenon.

A century ago international anarchists were causing public outrage and panic with their terror tactics. Matt Carr considers the parallels with al-Qaeda today.

Clive Foss introduces the Kharijites, a radical sect from the first century of Islam based in southern Iraq and Iran, who adopted an extreme interpretation of the Koran, ruthless tactics and opposed hereditary political leadership. After causing centuries of problems to the caliphate, they survive in a quietist form in East Africa and Oman.