Subscribe

from only £18.95 for six issues

History

Why good books could not deter bad leaders
Some of the world’s worst dictators, including Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, loved great literature. But it did nothing to improve their minds
Daniel Kalder

Amritsar: beginning of the end of Empire
The true casualty figures are still hotly disputed 100 years after the Punjab massacre, but its real legacy was the slow death of the Raj
Zareer Masani

Veni, Vidi, Vinum
The Romans had a tendency towards alarming additives in their drinks
Saintsbury

Royal Ely
A visit to Ely Cathedral perfectly encapsulates the history of England and her architecture.
Daisy Dunn

The First City To Be Coventried
The Coventry raid has stuck in the collective memory for a variety of reasons
Patrick Bishop

Magdalen’s Bad Old Days
RW "Bill" Johnson's memoir of the college is a rattling good read
Robert Fox

How Mervyn King Got Northern Rock Wrong
The Governor of the Bank of England ignored the lessons of history and the UK’s reputation for financial competence may never recover
Tim Congdon

Why Palmyra Should Matter To The West
The genocidal ghouls of Isis are tearing down a precious piece of our civilisation. This is the price we pay for not standing up to barbarism
Daniel Johnson

British Witnesses To Lenin’s Revolution
Five British writers were in Russia in 1917. Each one had his own story, but all were overwhelmed by the powerful tide of history
Jeffrey Meyers

Stalin’s Man In London
The newly-published diaries of Ivan Maisky are an extraordinarily important 21st-century contribution to our understanding of the Second World War
S J D Green

Underrated: Abroad
The ravenous longing for the infinite possibilities of “otherwhere”
Stephen Bayley

The king of cakes
"Yuletide revels were designed to see you through the dark days — and how dark they seem today"
Carolyn Hart

A tripod in the sky
The view from above
Christian House
Search