All articles in Society & Culture
24th July, 2025 in History, Society & Culture
The most overrated and underrated British kings and queens?
In Measuring Monarchy, Tim Hames proposes a new way to rank our Royals, and makes a case for applying the following five metrics – with entertaining results. professional reputation standing with the public impact on the public purse conduct of foreign policy preparations for suc…
20th June, 2025 in History, Society & Culture, True Crime
Ask the author: Neil Root on The Cleveland Street Scandal
Seasoned journalist, acclaimed author, and true crime historian, Neil Root, delves into one of Victorian society’s most explosive scandals – The Cleveland Street Scandal. A precursor to the prosecution of Oscar Wilde, this book exposes deep-rooted corruption within the Victorian…
29th May, 2025 in History, Society & Culture, Sport, Women in History
Tracing the history of the Women’s Football Association
I like to think that there is a symmetry between my query of myself in 1967 – ‘why don’t girls play football?’ – with my thought over fifty years later that the history of the Women’s Football Association needed to be written down. As I was pretty sure that I was the only survivi…
16th April, 2025 in History, Military, Society & Culture
Black Britain and VE Day
In his book Under Fire, Stephen Bourne draws on first-hand testimonies to tell the whole story of Britain’s black community during the Second World War, shedding light on an oft neglected area of history. Drawing on a wealth of experiences from evacuees to entertainers, gove…
3rd March, 2025 in Biography & Memoir, History, Society & Culture, Women in History
From cocktails to cannibals: The adventurous life of Lady Dorothy Mills, explorer and writer
When Lady Dorothy Mills was a young girl, a female relative told her she would never be beautiful so she had better be interesting – and she was. Yet extraordinarily, this is the first book about this fearless woman who became the best-known female explorer of the 1920s and 30s,…
28th January, 2025 in Society & Culture
Ask the author: Michael Robb on Shelf Life – A history of bookselling and publishing
Michael Robb, a stalwart figure in the bookselling and publishing arena, has experienced first-hand the shifting tides of this well-loved industry over the past 40 years. From successfully running an independent bookshop in Essex for two decades, to transitioning into the publish…
20th November, 2024 in Natural World, Society & Culture
A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects
Author Anne Strathie is a writer and researcher, whose three biographies of members of Robert Scott’s 1910-13 Terra Nova Antarctic expedition are published by The History Press. Her new book, A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects: From Cook’s Circumnavigations to the Aviat…
6th September, 2024 in Society & Culture, Women in History
The dark side of Bohemia
By the beginning of the 20th century, a new generation of women had begun to turn the idea of Victorian respectability on its head. Not for them the conventional, stultifying lives of their forebears. They rejected the traditional family hierarchy and fashioned new identities thr…
2nd September, 2024 in Military, Society & Culture
Lessons learnt from the Second World War
Eighty-five years ago, the outbreak of the Second World War was confirmed. Author Victoria Panton Bacon asks, what have we learnt? Colin Bell, now 103, recollects the announcement of the Second World War. Colin was 18 years old at the time, living with his family in East Molesey…
30th April, 2024 in Biography & Memoir, Society & Culture, Women in History
The soundtrack to ‘Queens of Bohemia’
Introduction – G. Puccini, “Quando m’en vo'” La Boheme for Cello & Piano DARREN COFFIELD: Bohemian was a term used for those who lived unconventional lives, when the first Romani Gypsies appeared in sixteenth century France they were labelled bohemian and their non-conformist…
22nd April, 2024 in Military, Society & Culture
A tale of two court cases
The thought arrived as I was hovering inside a crowded coffee shop directly opposite the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand. Tables and bars pulsed with suited, brief cased, device-bashing professionals; the buzz from conversation being shouted and spoken into phones and faces…
13th March, 2024 in Society & Culture
Ask the author: Kristofer Allerfeldt on the Ku Klux Klan – An American History
Author Kristofer Allerfeldt is a professor of US history at the University of Exeter. He has written articles, both popular and academic; and lectured in Europe, the UK and the US. He has also produced four academic books. The Ku Klux Klan is his new book which seeks to demystify…