This column is condensed from a stiffer academic one (Byzantion 51, 1981, pp8-21) intended to amplify and correct a paper on the same subject by Constance Head (Byzantion 50, 1980, pp336-40). Alongsid

In January 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled Iran with “his wife, some jewels and a clod of earth”, says author Christopher de Bellaigue in the Financial Times. A measure of how the country’s Isla

This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of

Samurai rose to be global emblems of honour and courage, but their story doesn’t always match the myths they told about themselves, as a British Museum exhibition shows

Sometimes, a single narrative comes to dominate how we remember a year. So it is with 1776. This, as every history lover knows, was the date that the American colonies declared their independence, beg

Daniel Anlezark Constructing the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles 310pp. D. S. Brewer. £95. Janet Bately, Joseph C. Harris and Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, with Susan Irvine, editors and translators The Old Engl