Built as tangible symbols of repression and control, by the 18th century castles were more likely to be invaded by tourists than soldiers. When castles lost their military function, the crowds arrived, looking for history that was not there.
Young, idealistic and prone to violence, Louis-Antoine de Saint-Just embodied the spirit of the French Revolution. He was devoured by the Terror he helped unleash.
Despite advances in technology, the fledgling music industry had a problem: it could not mass-produce records. For a brief period, every recording committed to wax was unique, forcing labels to find creative ways of meeting demand.
Nazi art never caught on, its architecture was unbuilt or destroyed, but its films were shot and seen by millions. The German dictator was a keen believer in the power of cinema and used it to spread the ideology of his murderous regime.
New universities sprang up across medieval Europe at a rapid rate, yet at the start of the 19th century, England had only two: Oxford and Cambridge. For centuries, England’s two oldest institutions enjoyed a strict duopoly on higher learning, enforced by law. Why were they allowed to?
Auctions, presided over by charismatic storytelling showmen, became social events in the 18th century, where middle-class Georgians could pick over the possessions of the dead and see close up the tactile relics of celebrity.
For five centuries the legend of a Christian priest king, in Asia or in Africa, sustained the hopes of Europeans in their struggle with Islam. Those who joined the search for Prester John were looking for a man who was not there.
What goes on in other people’s minds? The idea of writing about what we can never know – the interior lives of others – was born in the fertile hybrid culture of 12th-century England and made possible by the pursuit of romantic love.
Following the Russian Revolution, a small number of suffragettes transferred their allegiance from the women’s movement to international communism. For two young activists, the ‘Lenin Revolution’ promised adventure, kinship and the chance to reshape women’s role in society.
