CATEGORIES

"Britain's first black editor achieved so much in such a short life"

WHEN I RECENTLY CAME ACROSS THE MAN considered Britain's first black editor, I was surprised that I had never before heard his name. Samuel Jules Celestine Edwards was born in Dominica, the youngest of 10 children, near the end of the 1850s. In 1870 he travelled to North America and then, some seven years later, to Edinburgh, where he worked as a labourer. He later spent time in Sunderland, where he reconnected with his Christian faith, practising as a Methodist, and became a vocal proponent of temperance.

Is history under threat at the UK's universities?

Universities around Britain have announced staffing cuts to history departments in recent months, citing falling admissions and funding shortages. President of the Royal Historical Society EMMA GRIFFIN spoke to Matt Elton about the causes of the crisis

"The idea that political projects such as nation-making can ever be totally successful is a misconception"

Joya Chatterji talks to Matt Elton about her book charting the tumultuous course of south Asia's 20th-century, including the violence that followed the creation of three new countries after the withdrawal of the British empire

Best defence

JON WILSON is swept up by a look at how diverse peoples worldwide reacted to British efforts to trade with, conquer, colonise and dominate their homelands

PEACE! (AT THE POINT OF A SWORD)

Pax Romana brought stability and prosperity to Rome's vast empire. Yet, writes Tom Holland, behind the dazzling new cities and teeming sea lanes lay the threat of lethal, irresistible violence

THE KING OF FOLLY

In 1323, Roger Mortimer pulled off an audacious escape from the Tower of London before ejecting Edward II from the English throne. But, writes Paul Dryburgh, the rebel baron's designs on power were undone by his own big head

Sidi Mubarak Bombay Unsung African adventurer

Stolen from his village as a boy, enslaved and trafficked to a distant land, the intrepid and big-hearted Sidi Mubarak Bombay returned to travel across his home continent on pioneering expeditions. CANDICE MILLARD introduces a little-known but exceptional explorer

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

The civil rights movement saw hundreds of thousands of Americans rallying to the cause of racial equality. Rhiannon Davies has spoken to several historians of the campaign for a new podcast series. Here she revisits five key moments in the struggle

Why we're still living in the age of the witch hunt

The gruesome mass executions of the early modern era may have abated, but that doesn't mean the persecution of so-called witches has come to an end

City on the brink of battle

Hidden away in an unassuming shopping centre lies a doorway to the distant past. EMILY BRIFFETT steps back in time to discover the contested world of Anglo-Saxon Winchester

America rediscovered

CAROLINE DODDS PENNOCK acclaims an insightful exploration of the history of North America's Indigenous peoples since the era of European colonisation

THE GREATEST PHARAOH?

Ramesses II was a genius in the art of self-promotion. Epic palaces, jaw-dropping temples and sycophantic scribes all projected his brilliance. But, asks Toby Wilkinson, do the achievements of Egypt’s ‘king of kings’ truly justify the hype?

The children's war on slavery

They boycotted sugar, signed petitions and played abolitionist board games. Ryan Hanley and Kathryn Gleadle introduce the young people who took a stand against the slave trade in Georgian Britain

The forgotten history of Windrush

The famous voyage of the Empire Windrush from Jamaica to Britain 75 years ago was the product of a tumultuous century in Britain's relationship with the Caribbean. Christienna Fryar reveals how a region was transformed following emancipation

"These men are a key part of our story. Their portrait should be seen"

WHEN THE RENOWNED ANGLO-HUNGARIAN painter Philip de László died in 1937, an unusual double portrait was found in his private collection

"Caroline was besotted with Byron. But, ungrateful love rat that he was, he set off chasing others"

LADY ANTONIA FRASER talks to Ellie Cawthorne about her biography of Caroline Lamb, the rule-breaking aristocrat whose affair with the great romantic poet scandalised Georgian society

Tale of the centuries

JOANN FLETCHER is engaged but occasionally frustrated by the third volume of a study of dynastic Egypt’s dramatic past

THE ORIGINAL ROGUE HEROES

It's a story of extravagant lies, homemade bombs and adrenaline-pumped commandos. Joshua Levine charts the formative years of the SAS through the exploits of four extraordinary servicemen

"Putin's misreading of history is a major contributing factor in how this war has progressed"

As the war in Ukraine continues to rage, with losses mounting ever higher on both sides, Matt Elton speaks to SERHII PLOKHY about his new book exploring the conflict’s historical origins and their consequences

"The coronation felt like a watershed in our relationship with the crown"

SO THE CORONATION IS OVER, AND WE ENTER a new era for the monarchy and the nation

"Diseases such as smallpox were hugely contagious and apocalyptically terrifying"

For centuries, scientists have striven to combat a whole host of infectious diseases. Yet, as Simon Schama explains in his new book, they have often met with considerable opposition

"Henry was not a great king but he was respected as a most Christian one"

David Carpenter talks to David Musgrove about the second part of his biography of King Henry II, and the extraordinary revolution that removed him from power in 1258

The queen who wouldn't go quietly

Margaret of Anjou was a foreigner and a woman. Those facts alone should have sunk her bid to regain the English throne for her husband, Henry VI. Yet, writes Joanna Arman, when it came to fighting her family’s corner, Margaret simply didn’t know when she was beaten

WHEN GERMS MADE HISTORY

Infectious diseases don't just make individuals sick - they can cause seismic shifts in societies. Jonathan Kennedy charts six moments when pathogens such as plague, smallpox and malaria played key roles in major cultural, political and economic transformations

Elizabeth I: mother's girl

The Virgin Queen lionised her father, Henry VIII, in public. Yet, writes Tracy Borman, examine what Elizabeth did as opposed to what she said and it’s evident that her sympathies lay with Anne Boleyn

Black masses, lethal potions and the plot to kill a king

In the 1670s, Louis XIV of France was the target of a series of assassination attempts involving poisons and necromancy. But who was the perpetrator? Josephine Wilkinson untangles a conspiracy that scandalised a nation

Hitler's forgotten victims

CHRISTINE SCHMIDT welcomes an important new book detailing the fraught search for justice by the Roma in the aftermath of their genocidal persecution by the Nazis

A European success story

PETER ANDERSON is impressed by a sweeping history of modern Spain, covering a century in which the country experienced both wartime tragedy and economic triumph

THE RACE TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD

On the 7Oth anniversary of the first ascent of Everest, Robin Ashcroft charts the trials, tragedies and triumphs that led to that pioneering climb and its implications for Britain's place on the world stage

How Britain stirred the cauldron of conflict in Palestine

Having ousted the Ottomans from Palestine in 1917, Britain administered a territory that was already a tinderbox of tensions between Arabs and Jews. Matthew Hughes explores the bloody end of the Palestine Mandate and the emergence of the State of Israel