'The Danger Paradox' – Thomas Cochrane’s Guide to War
Peter Moore explains what made Thomas Cochrane such a potent military force during the years of the Napoleonic Wars.
19th Century
A collection of 41 Posts
The History of the Proscenium – The Place Where the Imaginary and Real Worlds Divide
The director Dominic Dromgoole, author of Time Frames, explains the historical forces behind the 'Proscenium Playwrights' of today.
Life at the Loneliest Farmhouse in the World
The author Tim Ecott is a regular visitor to the remote Faroe Islands. Here he takes us to one of the most sparsely populated of them all, Stóra Dímun, and its single, lonely farmhouse.
Napoleon III and the Disastrous Battle of Sedan in 1870
Edward Shawcross traces the course of the Battle of Sedan in September 1870, a defeat that would spell the end for the Second Empire.
The Beauty and the Terror in Renoir’s ‘Pink and Blue’
This 1881 portrait of Alice and Elisabeth Cahen d'Anvers would inspire Catherine Ostler's The Renoir Girls
What is a Blockade – and Do They Work?
As President Trump announces his blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, we glance back at the history of this military tactic
Mary Anne Clarke and the Duke of York Scandal (1809)
We look back at the story of the Duke of York Scandal of 1809 when Mary Anne Clarke and Colonel Wardle upended British politics.
Mad Tom's Rising with Ian Breckon
The author Ian Breckon recalls one of the most peculiar revolts in English history
Victorian Recruiting Sergeants in Westminster (1877)
By the mid-Victorian Age people were beginning to look at recruiting sergeants with fresh eyes
Building Tower Bridge in London (1892)
At the end of the nineteenth century the gaunt arms of an engineering wonder stretched across the River Thames
Exploring the Dark Underbelly of Georgian Britain
From Jane Austen to Mary Wollstonecrat, Katharine Quarmby writes about the pleasures and pains of the late Georgian Era
Meet me at the Cemetery Gates
Little spaces, profound stories. Roger Luckhurst tells us about London's hidden cemeteries