New light on the Dark Ages

The past 40 years have witnessed a revolution in our understanding of early English history, which has inspired Michael Wood to update his landmark book In Search of the Dark Ages. Here, Michael chronicles the great leaps forward that have lit up this thrilling era

Accessorising the past

We've added accoutrements to our outfits for centuries, from buckles to buttons - but they aren't just important for fashion's sake. Cordula van Wyhe and Susan Vincent reveal what six accessories can tell us about historical attitudes to gender, empire and more

Into the wild

From its earliest days, the BBC set out to chronicle the natural world - an ambition that, as DAVID HENDY explores, reached new heights from the late 1970s with David Attenborough's string of wildlife blockbusters

A yearning process

HELEN CARR applauds a timely examination of the great British obsession with venerating the past, and its impact on our understanding of the challenges we face in the present

A global revolution

John Harris is impressed by a wide-ranging and clear-eyed work exploring the mechanisms of the slave trade and its enduring legacy in shaping the modern world order

'This was a time when losing a limb made you a hero, but losing a face made you a monster'

Lindsey Fitzharris talks to Rhiannon Davies about her book on a pioneering plastic surgeon who rebuilt men's shattered faces during the First World War

WAR WITHOUT END

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 is widely viewed through the prism of the great Cold War confrontation between east and west. Yet, writes Elisabeth Leake, the occupation also ignited a tinderbox of local grievances that continue to torment the country to this day

When the Black Death arrived in Europe, it was like striking a match in tinder

The medievalist and historian of medicine Monica H Green tells Ellie Cawthorne how scientific advances have changed our thinking on what caused the Black Death - and why it was so devastating

The survivor, the "incurable" and the scapegoat

History is too often presented as tales of "great men" - yet the experiences of ordinary women speak eloquently about the reality of lives past. Lucy Worsley introduces three outwardly unremarkable people caught up in pivotal events

THE SIEGE

When some 6,000 parliamentarians tried to prise a few hundred royalists out of Basing House in 1643, they began a brutal siege that would drag on for years - and see thousands slaughtered. Jessie Childs tells the story of a desperate struggle that became a defining episode of the Civil War

The strike has links to a far longer story of female south Asian protest

KAVITA PURI explores lesser-known stories from our past

SOLVING THE SUN'S BURNING MYSTERY

Scientists have spent decades trying to figure out why the Sun's atmosphere heats to extreme temperatures

COMETS FADE NEAR SATURN'S ORBIT

It's not just about the Sun's heat

OUR SATELLITE'S STARS SHED LIGHT ON GALAXY FORMATION

Mapping of the Large Magellanic Cloud reveals starry secrets

ASTEROID IMPACT UNLIKELY UNTIL 2880

Earthlings can breathe a little easier for the next 800 years

HUBBLE SPOTS ITS MOST DISTANT STAR YET

Meet Earendel, a star whose light took 12.8 billion years to reach Earth

MOON PROFILE TITAN

Saturn's biggest moon is a harsh, uninhabitable world, yet has uncanny similarities to our home planet

BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Five of NASA's spacecraft are heading beyond our solar neighbourhood. What will they find?

CONQUERING SPACE JUNK

Should we be worried about the debris we're leaving in orbit?

ARE WE IN A CHAOTIC UNIVERSE?

Do we finally have a handle on chaos theory and how it influences the world around us?

André Kuipers "Everybody in the space world was watching"

The only Dutch astronaut to fly into space twice, Kuipers also berthed a private spacecraft with the ISS for the first time

Grave insights

BRENNA HASSETT recommends an account of life and individual deaths - in Britain during the first millennium AD

Raised by wolves

Feral children have fascinated and frightened people for centuries, raising questions about what it means to be human. Richard Sugg shares the stories of some of these wild children - and explains why their return to society was not always a happy one

Medieval Christians were capable of imagining goddess-like beings that looked thoroughly pagan

RONALD HUTTON talks to Rhiannon Davies about his new book exploring four female deities who straddled the pagan and Christian worlds in the Middle Ages

The final slog

TAYLOR DOWNING salutes an account of the often overlooked last days of the Second World War in Europe, when Allied troops faced stubborn resistance from German forces

Generating fear

STEPHEN WALKER gives a nervous welcome to a history of nuclear power, which focuses on the accidents and the disasters that have plagued the sector

First letters

LANGUAGE

A cultural institution

Mixing music with drama and the ancient with the cutting-edge, the BBC's Third Programme set out to scale the shining peaks of "high culture". But, says DAVID HENDY, its lofty aims alienated as much as they allured

A congregation of voices

SARAH FOOT enjoys a new history of the Church of England, a book that finds space for the reflections of ordinary parishioners as well charting the deeds of the great and the good

All at sea

Maritime