Category Archives: History

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE – JUNE 17, 2026 PREVIEW

Cover of Country Life June 17, 2026, featuring Van Gogh's Irises

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Why the iris charmed Van Gogh’; How Holbein survived Henry VIII; Making super salads; Piers of the realm: the British love of the seaside…

Everything, everywhere, all at once

Irises have inspired great artists from Vincent van Gogh to Sir Cedric Morris. Michael Prodger examines the flower’s allure

Green with envy

Why not take a leaf out of Tom Parker Bowles’s book and sample the very best salad flavours from around the world?

Pier into the future

Our seaside piers are the great survivors of the Victorian age and many are thriving in the 21st century, reveals Jonathan Lee

Spread from Country Life June 17, 2026

Arts & antiques

It is 500 years since artist Hans Holbein arrived on these shores, yet we remain captivated by his portraits, finds Carla Passino

Louise Farina’s favourite painting

The perfumer senses the zest of an Italian spring morning in a still life celebrating citrus fruit

Country-house treasure

John Goodall sees High Church spirit in a handwritten Bible at Treberfydd House in Brecon

Spread from Country Life June 17, 2026

History and fantasy

In the second of two articles, John Goodall delves into the fable-meets-fact history of Warwick Castle, Warwickshire

The legacy

Octavia Pollock adds a dash of colour to the illustrious history of Winsor & Newton, supplier to the stars of the art world

The importance of being Ernst

Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen, head of the Courtauld Gallery, is optimistic about the future of the Arts, as he tells Carla Passino

Winging it

A beauty or a beast? Mark Cocker investigates how the exotic pheasant splits opinion

Spread from Country Life June 17, 2026

Luxury

Jonathan Self explores the royal enthusiasm for amethyst and Amie Elizabeth White weaves in some summer essentials

Interiors

An open-plan makeover wows Arabella Youens, plus perfect pitchers with Amelia Thorpe

Simply perfect

A 20-year revival of the Arts-and-Crafts garden at Fonthill House in Wiltshire catches the eye of Christopher Stocks

Spread from Country Life June 17, 2026

Travel

Sophia Money-Coutts savours all the fun of Florida on a trip to the party town of Palm Beach

A new sense of purpose

Robin Hereford is calling for a revival in the fortunes of brown furniture — pieces with style and sustainability on their side

A wrinkle in time

A new generation of American collectors is being charmed by exquisite English antique furniture, discovers Patrick Monahan

Cooking up a storm

Michael Billington is blown away by the RSC’s Tempest starring Sir Kenneth Branagh, but High Society delights without dazzling

FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE – SUMMER 2026 PREVIEW

Ravi Agrawal on FP's Summer 2026 Print Issue

FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘the End of…The U.S.-Israel alliance…Neo liberalism…Trans-Atlanticism…Climate Politics…The United Nations…Asylum…Political parties…Chinese growth…Morality…The future….

Where Neoliberalism Went Wrong

The U.S.-Israel Alliance Isn’t Special Anymore

Is Trans-Atlanticism Really Done? This article has an audio recording

How China’s Rise Upended Climate Politics This article has an audio recording

Why an Obituary for the U.N. Is Premature This article has an audio recording

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT – JUNE 12, 2026 PREVIEW

The TLS - Current Issue Cover

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT: The latest issue features ‘Forcing our hand?’ – Edward Chancellor on nudge economics….

Hints of evidence

M. John Harrison’s anti-philosophy of the sublime By Nick Holdstock

Who she loved

Mourning a marriage and a creative partnership By Lily Herd

Right question, wrong answer

Cults and the longing for community By Harrison Hill

Hidden persuaders

When behavioural economics meets politics By Edward Chancellor

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE – SUMMER 2026 PREVIEW

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘America at 250’ – The Revolutionary Spark. Celebrating the Daring Innovators & Visionary Insights That Forged A Nation.

George Washington Steps Down

Ted Scheinman

George Washington’s announcement that he wouldn’t seek a third presidential term helped define modern statesmanship: The Republic had no need for a king, even an American one. Writing from Europe, John Quincy Adams prayed the president’s retirement might “serve as the foundation upon which the whole system of [America’s] future policy may rise.” Washington’s decision set an informal precedent that largely held until term limits were codified by the 22nd Constitutional Amendment, ratified in 1951. Still, at the time of his farewell address, Washington’s opponents had serious complaints. Though Washington belonged to no party, he was associated with the Federalists—and many Anti-Federalist thinkers chastised the outgoing president for disparaging his ideological rivals while claiming neutrality. This dispute played out in newspapers and pamphlets—back when publishers always chose a side.

Among All the Great Things Benjamin Franklin Invented or Discovered, His Alter Egos Gave Him the Most Freedom

Silence Dogood. Richard Saunders. Benevolus. Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim. All were pen names that allowed Franklin to say things he couldn’t have otherwise said

Harriet Beecher Stowe Wrote a Work of Fiction That Seemed So Real That It Changed the History of the Country

To fight against slavery, the author collected true stories then picked up a pen and distilled them into “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE – JUNE 3, 2026 PREVIEW

COUNTRY LIFE MAGAZINE: The latest issue featuresConstable Country’ – The places the painter loved….

Taking the scenic route

History, hauntings and high-jinx figured in Britain’s first motoring guides, finds Jack Watkins

Spreads from Country Life 3 June 2026

What a Derby day

Epsom hosts one of racing’s most thrilling spectacles. Jack Watkins picks 10 of the best winners

Monaco

Adam Hay-Nicholls explores the changing face of Monaco, Steven King treads the Prince Rainier III sculpture trail, Arabella Youens seeks out the best properties for sale in the Principality and Mark Hedges cruises serenely into town

His green and pleasant land

John Constable painted places he knew and loved the best. Susan Owens examines how insight influenced his landscapes

Outstanding in their fields

From ‘shoy hoys’ to Worzel Gummidge, Aeneas Dennison traces the story of scarecrows

Spreads from Country Life 3 June 2026

Andy Wilman’s favourite painting

The television producer chooses a work that reveals a human response to the brutality of war

Country-house treasure

A godfatherly gift ensures that Sir Edwin Lutyens and Shilstone House in Devon are happy bed-fellows, discovers John Goodall

Spreads from Country Life 3 June 2026

Building on the past

In the second of two articles, John Goodall reveals how Elizabethan Doddington Hall is thriving into the 21st century

The legacy

Octavia Pollock profiles Percy Shaw, the inventor of cat’s eyes, the 20th century’s top design

Winging it

The feral pigeon’s modern-day scavenging masks a more valiant history, suggests Mark Cocker

Drawn to the land

Katharine Freeland meets artists who are mapping estates in an echo of traditional landowners

London Life

Jack Watkins strolls the streets that became an artist’s muse, our writers have all you need to know this month, Will Hosie shares seven of the best homes on the market and Rupert Clague charts the rise of the capital’s coffee houses

Spreads from Country Life 3 June 2026

Death, taxes and Tests with New Zealand

What next for England’s Bazball approach, asks James Fisher

Luxury

Amie Elizabeth White is on red alert — and gives pearl a whirl

Interiors

Arabella Youens admires an extended Cotswolds cottage and Giles Kime ponders going it alone

Dreaming of roses

Charles Quest-Ritson shares 1,000 reasons to fall in love with the restored walled garden at Dummer House, Hampshire

Arts & antiques

Rebecca Salter, president of the Royal Academy, outlines her ambitions to Carla Passino

Travel

A mountain-top encounter rings a bell with Pamela Goodman

And much more

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS – JUNE 25, 2026

THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue features Fintan O’Toole on The Emptiness of Greatness….

Gulliver’s Warning

Like Gulliver in Lilliput, “greatness” in the political realm depends on the existence of a group deemed puny or weak.

APOLLO MAGAZINE ———- JUNE 2026 PREVIEW

June 2026 - Apollo Magazine

APOLLO MAGAZINE: The latest issue features ‘Hare Style’ – Vienna’s Albertina at 250…

LITERARY REVIEW MAGAZINE – JUNE 2026 PREVIEW

LITERARY REVIEW : The latest issue features Peter Moore on George Forster * Anne Perkins on the Balfour family * William Whyte on British dons * Ian Thomson on the fall of the USSR * Joe Moshenska on Spinoza * Jeremy Treglown on Juan Carlos of Spain * D J Taylor on Henrietta Moraes * Howard Davies on recession * Martin Vander Weyer on Goldman Sachs * Piers Brendon on disinformation * Richard Vinen on Kissinger * Bettina Bildhauer on medieval health * John Mullan on Emily Brontë* Joseph Hone on Jonathan Swift * Duncan Fallowell on Lady Chatterley * 

The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity

By Andrea Wulf

An exemplary tour of the High Enlightenment might go something like this. You’d begin in the streets of 1760s London to feel the pulse of Georgian commerce. You’d then hop aboard one of Captain Cook’s colliers and cruise through the Pacific, having encounters every day. Returning to Europe you might watch Benjamin Franklin in diplomatic action at Passy and dine with Casanova in Vienna, before sailing up the Rhine with Humboldt. Having inspected the Soho Manufactory in Birmingham and admired the picturesque scenery of the Peak District, you’d cross the Channel just in time for the grand and bloody finale in Paris. 

Twilight of the Dons: British Intellectuals from World War II to Thatcherism

By Colin Kidd

Arriving as an undergraduate at Cambridge in 1961, Terry Eagleton was both overawed and underwhelmed by his supervisor, a man he calls Greenway in his memoir. ‘Greenway was the first truly civilised man I had ever encountered,’ Eagleton recalls.

This Dark Night: The Life of Emily Brontë

By Deborah Lutz

We know so little about Emily Brontë. There are just a few snapshots, like the vivid recollection of her sister Charlotte’s great friend Ellen Nussey: ‘Her extreme reserve seemed impenetrable, yet she was intensely loveable … one of her rare expressive looks was something to remember through life, there was such a depth of soul and feeling..

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT – MAY 29, 2026 PREVIEW

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT: The latest issue features ‘Is DNA destiny?’ – Matthew Cobb on engineering humanity.

Examining poets

J. H. Prynne and Geoffrey Hill’s clash over ‘hazards in rubric’ By Gabriel Rolfe

Metalheads and quilters

‘Aside from writing, what is your chief distraction, obsession or side-hustle?’ Writers at the Hay Festival reveal their private passions

The traitors

Cold War double agents, their lives and motives By Richard Davenport-Hines

‘I shall feel again, as soon as I dare’

Addictive anthologies of letters and diaries By Dinah Birch

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT – MAY 15, 2026 PREVIEW

TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT: The latest issue features ‘Among Putin’s Russians’…

Anti-communist or antisemitic?

The ideology behind Hitler’s assault on the Soviet Union By Richard J. Evans

‘Send on anything human’

Previously unseen letters between Ezra Pound and Gladys Hynes By Ed Vulliamy

You say lee-do …

The rise, fall and survival of open-air swimming pools By David Horspool

Main-character syndrome

Video games and political violence By Regina Rini