Social

Adrian Seville describes the humble beginnings of the earliest lottery, tracing its development from 16th-century Venice across the Channel to Britain.

In reviewing the career of one of the key figures in modern Russian history, Michael Lynch rejects the notion that Trotsky would have been a more humane leader than Stalin.

Tsar Alexander II oversaw a set of reforms which held out the prospect of modernising Russia but whose failure paved the way for revolution.

Claire Cross shows how the experiences of English Protestant exiles on the Continent, and Continental exiles in England, affected Protestantism in the Sixteenth Century.

Ian Bradley reflects on the origins and development of Christmas carols.

The troubled history of the region, and the deep-rooted antagonisms between the different ethnic groups laying claim to it.

Mikhail Gorbachev's period as President of the Soviet Union, 1985-91, was truly revolutionary. But Steven Morewood argues that he failed to understand or control the forces he unleashed.

The 1867 Reform Act did not set the British electoral system in stone until the Third Reform Act of 1884-85. John Walton reveals that its effects were complex, varied and quite often unintended.

In this assessment of Tudor peers, Matthew Christmas argues that the nobility retained their importance as a class and are fundamental to an understanding of the Tudor period.

1930s Shanghai was notoriously populated by characters of dubious political and moral allegiances. Bernard Wasserstein shows how the Japanese used their contacts among the city’s low-life to assist in their invasion and occupation.