CATEGORIES

AMERICA'S FIRST COMMANDER IN CHIEF

A Founding Father, military hero of the revolution and the nation’s first president – but how much of his story is fact, and how much fiction?

Lodging with Mozart (and Shelley, Franklin and Byron)

It may seem strange in our home-owning obsessed times, but thousands of Georgians – from modest milliners to world-famous poets – chose renting a room over gaining a toehold on the property ladder. Gillian Williamson explains why

In Search of Unity

Richard Jevans is unconvinced by a new study that is focused on the idea of finishing the “European project” and based on the testimonies of esteemed thinkers over the centuries

The Good Fight

Diane Atkinson applauds an insightful and inspiring history of political and social action by women around the turn of the 19th century

Discover Slate Country

The epic ruins of North Wales’ once-great slate industry are now a Unesco World Heritage Site. Julie Brominicks marvels at the spectacle

Alfred Fagon - A Unique Caribbean Voice

Having migrated from Jamaica as a teenager, Alfred Fagon emerged as a powerful playwright who created African-Caribbean characters to speak truths about the challenges facing black people in Britain. Stephen Bourne introduces a writer who helped transform black British theatre in the 1970s and 80s

What Makes a Greek?

Michael Scott enjoys an informed and entertaining journey through the history of Greek-speaking people, but takes issue with the framing of the book

A National Institution

As it approached its second decade, the BBC's happy-go-lucky attitude was fading fast. And, as David Hendy reveals in the second instalment of our 13-part series tracing the corporation's cultural impact, the government was now taking a keen interest

The Tower of London in Bloom

If you're able to get to London this year then why not come and celebrate the space and Queen at the Tower of London, where a spectacular, colourful, vibrant field of flowers will fill and transform the Tower's moat.

Fight for a Nation

Costas Douzinas on a study of the revolution by which Greece freed itself from the Ottoman empire and was transformed into a self-ruling nation-state

Battle of Wills

Mark White commends a wide-ranging investigation into the psychological dimensions of the Cold War and the crucial role fear played in shaping American and Soviet strategies

Emily Soldene - Actress, writer, rebel

As the darling of London’s opera scene, and then as a journalist printing scandalous revelations about the cream of society, Emily Soldene thrived in the limelight. HELEN BATTEN explains why this trendsetting, rule-breaking, genre-hopping Victorian celebrity deserves to take centre stage once more

Meet the boss

Ever wondered who is behind the scenes, bringing the nation’s most popular factual programme to our screens every week? Annabel Ross meets Countryfile’s series editor Jane Lomas

Sara Maitland

Snobby social attitudes undervalue manual labour – especially in the countryside

God Save The Queen

It will be a mess when she’s gone

Books That Changed My Life

Candice Carty-Williams’ Sunday Times Bestseller Queenie was one of the best-loved books of last year’s lockdown. Her new novel, Empress & Aniya is available in paperback and on Audible (published by Knights Of)

Windows Onto History

From the glittering stained glass in medieval cathedrals to modernist high-rises, windows have illuminated our buildings for centuries. But, argues Rachel Hurdley, the presenter of a new BBC Radio 4 documentary on the history of windows, they can also shed light on the past

INSIDE THE STEP PYRAMID OF DJOSER

Sean McLachlan explores the recently reopened interior of this iconic Third Dynasty Saqqara monument.

PER MESUT: for younger readers

She Who Loves Silence

Highlights of the Manchester Museum 29: An Offering by Queen Tiye for her Husband

Campbell Price describes an offering table with a touching significance.

What is... a nail house?

Don’t confuse a nail house with a nail parlour. A nail house is an old house that survives as new building development goes on all around it.

Kent's stairway to heaven

Walter Barton May’s Hadlow Castle is the ultimate Gothic folly

Pursuits

Pursuits

The book that changed the world

On Marcel Proust’s 150th anniversary, A N Wilson praises his masterpiece, an exquisite comedy with no parallel

RIP the playboys of the western world

Charlie Methven mourns his dashing former father-in-law, Luis ‘the Bounder’ Basualdo, last of a dying breed

Arts

Arts

My film family's greatest hits

Downton Abbey producer Gareth Neame follows in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandmother, a silent-movie star

Books

Books

A lifetime of pin-ups

Barry Humphries still has nightmares about going on stage. He’s always admired the stars who kept battling on

Virginia McKenna, the African queen

At 90, the actress is still saving the wildlife she fell in love with, filming Born Free, over 50 years ago. By Roderick Gilchrist