Browse Items (6 total)

England’s legal system, which has since spread beyond its country of origin, resulted from an uncommon combination of centuries of input from a wide variety of sources. Harry Potter traces its roots and follows its branches.

The painter Claude Monet spent his early twenties as a soldier in French North Africa, yet none of his works or writings from this period survive. Jeffrey Meyers pieces together a portrait of the artist as a young man.

Marisa Linton explains how Jacques-Pierre Brissot helped to initiate the French revolutionary wars, as he and Robespierre debated whether conflict with Austria should be a ‘crusade for universal liberty’.

The extent to which Britons were involved in slave-ownership has been laid bare by a project based at University College London. Katie Donington shows how one family profited.

The momentous final days of the French revolutionary are well documented. Yet, argues Colin Jones, many of the established ‘facts’ are myths that do not stand up to scrutiny.

The struggle for control of the straits dividing Sicily from southern Italy brought the two great empires of the Mediterranean, Carthage and Rome, head to head. It was a world in which ruthless mercenaries prospered.