How did a Gulf backwater become a global powerbroker? Saudi Arabia: A Modern History by David Commins explores the uneasy ...

Britain’s first book-of-the-month club – the Book Society – brought reading to a vast new audience. But not without some ...

In Language and Social Relations in Early Modern England Hillary Taylor listens in the archives for the voices of ordinary ...

Early 17th-century machines were intricate, impressive, responsive, and lively in equal measure. Even so, for Descartes just ...

How did Swahili become an East African lingua franca? It was not by accident.

On 5 July 1852 the curtain came down on Barney Barnato, one of the richest men in South Africa.

Long overshadowed by Lindbergh, The Big Hop: The First Non-Stop Flight Across the Atlantic and Into the Future by David ...

The Writer’s Lot: Culture and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France by Robert Darnton discovers a literary flowering in the shadow of the guillotine.

America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin finds a place for Latin America and its ideals in the story of the United States.

The Alienation Effect: How Central European Émigrés Transformed the British Twentieth Century by Owen Hatherley follows in the footsteps of those who fled fascism. Perhaps you’ve heard the stories ...

Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus by Elaine Pagels finds that the son of God is more than the sum of his parts. In the New Testament, Jesus is a charismatic miracle healer. He ...

In September 1099 a letter addressed to Pope Paschal II sent from Latakia, in present-day Syria, recounted a number of important events taking place during the First Crusade. As well as Latin ...