As so often in study of the past, continuing to ask the question matters more than agreeing upon an answer. Buildings made of ...

Why are you a historian of the Atlantic World? The Atlantic World is so vast and diverse; I’ll never run out of places and peoples to study. Marcus Rediker’s The Slave Ship: A Human History, as it ...

When Pope Alexander VI issued the Papal Bull of May 23rd, 1493, laying down a line of demarcation, to the east of which Portugal was granted exploring rights, while Spain had the same privilege to the ...

On the strength of a military reputation, and by a show of military force, Napoleon achieved supreme power in France, and he maintained that supreme power with the goodwill of the army. When his ...

Since the end of the eighteenth century Egypt has been a vital factor in European power politics. Its value as a bridge between Europe and the East was impressed upon British strategists and the world ...

Queen Victoria herself was asked to choose a capital for the province of Canada, which at that time consisted of the two colonies of Quebec and Ontario, and there’s a story that she simply stuck a ...

The stroke of midnight that ushered in New Year’s Day 1961 tolled the funeral bell for the farthing. Originally a fourthling, or fourth part of a penny, Britain’s tiniest coin had a history stretching ...

Richard, Duke of York was one of the barons who competed to run England during the reign of the hopelessly inadequate Henry VI. With a better claim to the crown by strict primogeniture than Henry ...