The remarkable fall of absinthe: from 19th-century ‘Green Fairy’ to scourge of society.

Caught between the antagonistic states of India and Pakistan, Kashmir is stuck in geopolitical limbo. Its location – and its ...

Prague, under the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, became the centre of the Renaissance world, where cultures mixed and learning ...

Chevaliere d’Eon or Chevalier d’Eon? An 18th-century legal dispute between two French spies unravelled into a public battle ...

A new book for the new year is an old British custom, but an old book can be even better.

So when Raúl Castro called for an end to the embargo based on economic and humanitarian grounds in late December, he was ...

For much of the 20th century, young working-class women in England found out about procreation the ‘hard way’ or the ‘dirty way’.

As convicts celebrated Queen Victoria’s birthday on remote Norfolk Island, debates raged over the purpose of punishment and ...

Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch reminds us that when it comes to sexuality and gender, scripture is often contradictory.

The Chinese folk tale The Snail-Shell Girl tells the story of a poor man who falls in love with a beautiful woman who lives in a shell, their path to happiness thwarted by an evil landlord. Adapted ...

In the racially segregated American South of the 1950s a Black woman sits in the section of a bus reserved for white passengers. Physically and verbally abused by the driver, she is forced off the ...