Arthur Conan Doyle and the Adventure of the Boer War
Eight years after giving up medicine for writing, the internationally famous creator of Sherlock Holmes became Dr Doyle once more, on the front line of the Boer War.
Miscellanies
‘Strangled for a bird’: The Case of the Aldbury Poachers
A double murder in an English wood became a Victorian cause célèbre, provoking a national debate about the tyranny of land ownership and the loss of ancient liberties.
Behold Palestine
Starting in the 1960s, the Palestinian revolution was galvanised by the production of protest posters which depicted a united people and a hopeful future. As the liberation movement fractured, such visions disappeared.
Deporting Ho Chi Minh
When, in 1931, the Vietnamese revolutionary Nguyen Ai Quoc was discovered to be hiding in Hong Kong, the French authorities requested the British extradite him to Indochina where a death sentence awaited.
The Afterlife of the Berlin Wall
The fall of the Berlin Wall posed various questions. Was a united Germany dangerous? How to protect the East’s heritage? And how should the Wall be remembered?
Switzerland’s Nation of Hoteliers
At the turn of the 20th century, Switzerland embraced the Grand Hotel. The First World War brought one golden age of hotels to an end, ushering in a new, more uncertain one.
Was Thomas Turner Lonely?
Loneliness as an emotion was absent in English writing before 1800. What does the diary of a Georgian widower reveal about its connection with the loss of faith?
How Northern England Made the Southern United States
Tough, lawless and often violent, the outlook of the Anglo-Scottish borderlands profoundly shaped the culture of the southern United States.
St James and the Two Faces of Spain
Spain’s patron saint has been depicted as apostle, pilgrim and slayer. His various guises reflect the deep divisions that have dominated Spanish history.
The Puzzles of Thermopylae
The story of 300 Greeks withstanding the might of Persia at the Thermopylae pass is well known. But how accurate is it? And, with few sources, how can we know?