Ignorance about Islam runs deep in the West – ignorance of its rites, its beliefs, and above all its prophet. Who was Mohammad, the founder of Islam, and the man Muslims believe was God&rs
Born in Corsica, and a brilliant military leader during the French revolution, Napoleon became Emperor in 1804 and dominated European and indeed global affairs for the next ten years, leading France a
Charlotte McGann tells the story of human sexuality from the days of the hunter gatherers through to modern times. She explores the attitudes of the ancient Greeks and Romans to sex – and at the
In his day Winston Churchill was one of the most famous human beings who ever lived. In 1945 most people in the world would have seen his name in the headlines, heard the latest news of him on t
For many, before 1914, a huge European war had seemed impossible. Conflicts in the Balkans flared up yet stayed contained. The Belgian historian Henri Pirenne wrote to a friend in December 1905: &ldqu
Malcolm Hebron writes with one aim in mind: to help you read, understand and appreciate poetry. The English language has an extraordinarily rich stock of poems to its credit, from the epic Beowulf, wr
The success of the Norman Conquest of Britain turned on one lucky break. For months, William of Normandy waited for an opportunity to cross the Channel and invade. But he needed favourable weather and
Between 1933 and 1945, Germany was under the grip of the Third Reich. Headed by Adolf Hitler, this National Socialist state endeavoured to control every aspect of the nation’s political, social,
Stalin, to borrow Churchill’s phrase, is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. There are still heated arguments about how precisely we should judge the Georgian student p
The sun never set upon the British Empire, its critics liked to say, because God didn’t trust the British in the dark. The joke was a backhanded tribute to the astonishing achievement of t
Throughout history, a handful of unusually driven individuals have been inspired to explore the limits of the known world, inspiring us and changing our perceptions of our planet through their courage
