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Best books… Roy Foster The emeritus professor of ...

You wouldn’t guess from the cover design—three songbirds silhouetted over swatches of picturesque Englishness—but Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems hits one of its sweet spots with a

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

A mosaic from the third or fourth century AD depicts gladiatorial combat. Rather than having slender, muscular bodies like modern athletes, these Roman fighters were lopsided and fat The gladiators of

Best books… Ian Leslie The author and journalist ...

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