John Marlowe, a shoemaker from Canterbury, died in 1605. His son Christopher had failed to follow him into the trade, choosing the more unreliable life of playwright, poet and jobbing spy. It had been

The secret meaning of Vermeer’s art

The development and future of capitalism

There are various reasons to be thinking about ...

In his new book, Edmond Smith addresses a question that has occupied generations of historians: why was Britain the first country to industrialise, thus securing its global dominance in the 19th centu

A liberal thinker about the American century