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Panoramania

Robert Thorne investigates the nineteenth-century passion for views that has inspired the exhibition about to open at London's Barbican Art Gallery.

Pox and Paranoia in Renaissance Europe

J.S. Cummins considers the impact of syphilis on the 16th-century world – a tale of rapid spread, guilt, scapegoats and wonder-cures, with an uncomfortable modern resonance.

Anti-Popery and the London Mob, 1688

Robert Beddard chronicles the indiscriminate orgy of looting and destruction unleashed in the vacuum between James' flight and William's arrival in the capital.

Portugal's Impact on Africa

Bartholomew Dias' voyage to the Cape of Good Hope in the late 15th century marked the apex of an extraordinary Portuguese expansion overseas and the start of a fateful European impact on South Africa.