Features

Here you can explore our archive of long form pieces, written by expert historians. In these features, they explain where they found their ideas, how they crafted their stories, what new discoveries they have made and arguments they have proposed.

A Blacksmith in Illinois post image

A Blacksmith in Illinois

Bert Wikle was a member of the German-American Community in the early twentieth century

Harry Clifton and Brideshead’s Sebastian Flyte post image

Harry Clifton and Brideshead’s Sebastian Flyte

The real-life inspiration for a classic character from fiction

1918: Parliament Square, London post image

1918: Parliament Square, London

The Armistice: a strange and uncertain peace

The Unseen History of the Greek Intellectuals during the Roman Empire post image

The Unseen History of the Greek Intellectuals during the Roman Empire

Charles Freeman on the endurance of Greek culture

The Art of the Grimoire post image

The Art of the Grimoire

A gallery of Magic Books and Spells with Owen Davies

1864: A Family Portrait post image

1864: A Family Portrait

Wet plate photography and the American Civil War

1879: Frederick Douglass post image

1879: Frederick Douglass

How the most photographed man in America harnessed the portrait as a political tool

1932: Mount Rushmore Under Construction post image

1932: Mount Rushmore Under Construction

Doane Robinson, Gutzon Borglum and the Making of a Monument

The Siege of Leningrad post image

The Siege of Leningrad

Prit Buttar on the city that would not surrender

Gormflaith: An Irish Queen post image

Gormflaith: An Irish Queen

Shauna Lawless investigates the life of an elusive and beguiling figure

Dickens's London to Diagon Alley post image

Dickens's London to Diagon Alley

Lee Jackson on the emergence of an aesthetic

The Last French Emperor post image

The Last French Emperor

Edward Shawcross on Napoleon III and the dynasty that wasn't