Society
essay
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
essay
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
essay
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
essay
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
essay
Political philosophy
Liberal socialism now
As the crisis of democracy deepens, we must return to liberalism’s revolutionary and egalitarian roots
Matthew McManus
essay
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
essay
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
essay
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
video
Sex and sexuality
For ages, solo sex was hardly taboo. What led to its centuries-long dry spell?
4 minutes
video
Stories and literature
A French Creole folktale nearly lost to time is given new, gorgeously animated life
6 minutes
video
Art
Why a forcefully phallic portrait of Henry VIII is a masterful work of propaganda
6 minutes
video
Global history
Meet the jesters who’ve spoken truth to power around the globe and across centuries
5 minutes
video
Stories and literature
Myths from Earth’s edge – what the Icelandic sagas reveal about Norse morality
57 minutes
video
Anthropology
A riveting collage portrays a century of Inuit history, and envisions a vibrant future
14 minutes
essay
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
video
Biography and memoir
The busboy who comforted Robert F Kennedy as he lay dying shares his story
3 minutes
essay
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
video
Demography and migration
One story, in a sea of millions, of swimming from China to freedom in Hong Kong
14 minutes
essay
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
essay
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
essay
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
essay
History
Medieval babycare
From mansplaining about breastfeeding to debates on developmental toys, medieval parenting was full of familiar dilemmas
Katherine Harvey
essay
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
essay
History
Women at the barricades
The transgressions of working-class women formed the revolutionary heart of the 1871 Paris Commune
Carolyn Eichner