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Society

Essays and videos on social issues, history, political life and the future
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Stories and literature

Her blazing world

Margaret Cavendish’s boldness and bravery set 17th-century society alight, but is she a feminist poster-girl for our times?

Francesca Peacock

A marble bust of Thucydides is shown on a page from an old book. The opposite page is blank.
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History

What would Thucydides say?

In constantly reaching for past parallels to explain our peculiar times we miss the real lessons of the master historian

Mark Fisher

A street intersection; a wall is painted with the word Soulsville in large letters with peeling paint
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Economic history

The southern gap

In the American South, an oligarchy of planters enriched itself through slavery. Pervasive underdevelopment is their legacy

Keri Leigh Merritt

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War and peace

Legacy of the Scythians

How the ancient warrior people of the steppes have found themselves on the cultural frontlines of Russia’s war against Ukraine

Peter Mumford

Seen from inside, a couple eat a basic meal whilst outside in an alleyway a queue of mostly older people wait their turn
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Political philosophy

Liberal socialism now

As the crisis of democracy deepens, we must return to liberalism’s revolutionary and egalitarian roots

Matthew McManus

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Religion

There was no Jesus

How could a cult leader draw crowds, inspire devotion and die by crucifixion, yet leave no mark in contemporary records?

Gavin Evans

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History

The mythos of leadership

How the biblical King David and Machiavelli’s Prince can help us understand the dominant view of leaders as individualists

Moshik Temkin

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Architecture

The subtle art of elevation

Architectural drawing speaks of mathematical precision, but its roots lie in the theological exegesis of a prophetic book

Karl Kinsella

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Sex and sexuality

For ages, solo sex was hardly taboo. What led to its centuries-long dry spell?

4 minutes

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Stories and literature

A French Creole folktale nearly lost to time is given new, gorgeously animated life

6 minutes

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Art

Why a forcefully phallic portrait of Henry VIII is a masterful work of propaganda

6 minutes

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Global history

Meet the jesters who’ve spoken truth to power around the globe and across centuries

5 minutes

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Stories and literature

Myths from Earth’s edge – what the Icelandic sagas reveal about Norse morality

57 minutes

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Anthropology

A riveting collage portrays a century of Inuit history, and envisions a vibrant future

14 minutes

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War and peace

Chorus of testimony

Anne Frank’s diary is one of thousands of desperate, secret and vivid journals each bearing witness to the reality of war

Nina Siegal

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Biography and memoir

The busboy who comforted Robert F Kennedy as he lay dying shares his story

3 minutes

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History

Warfare as mercy and love

The daggers that knights carried to the crusades help us understand why they thought of holy war as an act of love

William Chester Jordan

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Demography and migration

One story, in a sea of millions, of swimming from China to freedom in Hong Kong

14 minutes

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History

The life of Wanda Półtawska

Her closeness to Pope John Paul furnished him with anti-abortion ideals, fuelled by her survival of the Ravensbrück camp

Joy Neumeyer

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The ancient world

Guide to a foreign past

The iconoclastic French historian Paul Veyne illuminated the past by showing how deeply alien it is to the present

Carlos Noreña

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Human rights and justice

Lydia Maria Child, abolitionist

Taking up arms against slavery, the famous novelist foreshadowed the vexed role of the white woman activist today

Lydia Moland

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History

Medieval babycare

From mansplaining about breastfeeding to debates on developmental toys, medieval parenting was full of familiar dilemmas

Katherine Harvey

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Archaeology

What the tablets say

Some 3,700 years ago, an enslaved girl, a barber, and a king crossed paths in a city by the Euphrates. This is their story

Amanda H Podany

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History

Women at the barricades

The transgressions of working-class women formed the revolutionary heart of the 1871 Paris Commune

Carolyn Eichner