History

In the UK, the gulf between the political and the academic worlds seems all-but unbreachable while Americans flit easily between lecture halls and halls of power. Here Matthew Reisz examines why Whitehall seems so inhospitable to scholars, while overleaf Jon Marcus looks at why Washington is so accommodating

In America, it is common for academics to play a prominent political role. Jon Marcus reports

A rich portrait of a country at the crossroads offers Richard King a sense of where it might be headed

The Freedom of Information Act could be a boon to scholars seeking hidden data. Zoe Corbyn reports

A.W. Purdue on ten years of adroit scholarship that helped to revitalise a discipline in Britain

Charlotte Methuen on Early Protestantism's continuing influence on modern-day culture

A Classic Greek holiday via time-machine: Simon Goldhill strolls the agora and wishes you were here

Linda Colley tells Matthew Reisz how her work on 'Britishness' fed into an exhibition about the fight to enshrine liberty in the national fabric

Talking dust-bowl blues: historian and resolutely amateur musician Will Kaufman hymns the world of Guthrie and Steinbeck

Richard Sha explores the influence of science on Romanticism

Renowned feminist writer Sheila Rowbotham talks to Matthew Reisz about writing from her own experience and imagining what it is like to be inside a homosexual man's body

A hate figure of popular history reveals his more caring side to Tom Palaima in a vivid new treatment

Richard Evans, Cambridge's new Regius professor of modern history, finds much to be optimistic about in his discipline

Philip Kemp enjoys a serious exploration of the cinematic epic

Robert Shoemaker wonders if the statistics, and the 'civilising process', tell the whole story