History

Margaret Weitekamp on a woman who helped get the US space programme off the ground

A startling exercise in revisionism leads A. W. Purdue to ponder which nation was responsible for launching the great conflict

Rachel L. Einwohner on those who stood against the Holocaust

Christianity undermined Roman sexuality by giving it a spiritual dimension, finds Candida Moss

June Purvis is intrigued by an account of those who swam against the tide in an age of conformity and religious piety

Korea was divided by a struggle for legitimacy that resonates still, writes Marilyn Young

Lucy Wooding reviews an analysis of the culture of early modern England

Ilaria Favretto on how the ‘years of lead’ were brought to a close

Roger Morgan on a vivid social history of Britons seeking to modernise

Robert Zaretsky on a study that shows how history defeats not just prediction, but also our predilection for theory

A. W. Purdue on the evolution of the Tube system

Hilary Hinds praises an account of the social shifts discerned in small ads, smooching and soulmates

Pat Hudson on a treasure trove of accounts of working-class individuals enjoying new opportunities and choices amid change

Erik Jan Zürcher salutes a study showing how the military shaped the founder of the Republic of Turkey

Angela Vanhaelen on the fascination and fear aroused by 18th-century mechanical figures

Richard Bosworth on the ‘bad air’ of Rome and how it influenced artists and travellers

Peter Gwyn seeks more interpretation in a biography of the Virgin Queen and her male favourites and Ladies of the Bedchamber

Colin Higgins on Victorian women writers and poets who thrived, or not, in the atmosphere of the Round Reading Room

Roger Morgan on how a liberal doyen blackballed a Red rival

A rogue’s gallery stopped the ‘crippler’, but for how long? asks Helen Bynum

Ulrike Zitzlsperger on the changing nature of heritage and the consequent effects on national identities in European nations

Richard Follett on slavery and the power of literacy

Simon Underdown on a key battle between science and religion

Joanna Bourke on a harrowing look at the darkness in human hearts

Lucy Wooding on how women’s reading of the Bible was central to their lives and inspired a wealth of literature

Jennifer Altehenger on a family who lived through interesting times

Jane Stabler on how the great poet proved to be a great administrator

Roger Morgan on the interwoven histories of European nations over six centuries

Robert J. Mayhew lifts off with a true balloon enthusiast

Rationality yields to sentimentality in an Occupy Wall Street-inspired call for direct action, Fred Inglis finds

Jon Turney on the generator of the AC power grid

The interwoven tale of the fight over rubber and a visionary surveyor captivates Robert Mayhew

Marta Filipová on compelling tales of a city’s artistic, intellectual and political cultures

Cheryl Lawther on a history of the conflict and peace process and how the past continues to affect current attitudes

Willy Maley finds men behaving badly in this compelling account of a literary coupling

Joanna Bourke reflects on torturers, murderers and the paradoxes of portraying suffering and trauma

Biancamaria Fontana on the influences that shaped a French aristocrat’s ambiguous view of democracy from his studies of the American model

James Stevens Curl on a summary of Kircher’s hieroglyphic studies in the context of 17th-century scholarship on paganism and oriental languages

Stephen Halliday on a forgotten tragedy of the First World War

Robert Eaglestone on the experiences of a Holocaust survivor and how he rebuilt his life afterwards

Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik on a study of the process of researching the Bosnian wars

Alec Ryrie on a persuasive account of demoniacs and how society perceived and dealt with them

Tim Birkhead on the first comprehensive documenter of North American birds

Robert Eaglestone extols a great historian’s insights into a great and disquieting writer

Chris Knight on an anthropologist whose theories were embraced then shunned by the US military

Susan Hogan on a challenge to analyses of 19th-century politics that marginalise the role of women

A celebration of the life and influence of legendary historian Eric Hobsbawm, who died last October at the age of 95, brought out family, friends and fellow scholars in force at Birkbeck, University of London this week.

Neil Rennie on the 18th-century fascination with exotic visitors and the cultural exchange that took place

Margaret Weitekamp on a historical study of the relationship between religion and spaceflight

Sheila Rowbotham on a crisp portrait of a restless thinker who was neither infallible nor prophetic

Ulrike Zitzlsperger on the evolution of an iconic vehicle

Marilyn Young on the harrowing history of a chemical used to kill hundreds of thousands of people

A. W. Purdue on the prevalence of crime within the British armed forces

Lucy Wooding discusses a fresh examination of fervent belief

Howard Segal pieces together the fascinating history of a key innovation in US manufacturing

Christopher Phelps on a dazzling new look at the US response to the Depression

Roger Morgan on a great historian’s last essays that illuminate an era of social and artistic change

Luciana Astiz on how seismology evolved from the combined observations of scientists and citizens

Matthew Feldman on the connections between literary history and intelligence studies

Ervand Abrahamian ponders how Muslim clerics seized and retained control of modern-day Persia