History

Lawrence Black looks on as scholars accept an invitation to make imaginary journeys back in time

Lynne Segal is not entirely seduced by arguments for the innate naughtiness of God's chosen people

David Cesarani revisits a city of the damned

Stephen Gundle on the tales a beloved wooden puppet has to tell about his creator's country

Simon Barton is disappointed by a lopsided, broad-brush tale of Dark Ages Muslim-Christian clashes

The ban on performance-boosting substances in sport is a self-satisfied nonsense, argues historian Geoffrey Alderman in a fortnightly series allowing academics to step outside their area of expertise

What price victory? Huw Dixon weighs the odds

Torture cannot be justified, says Philippe Sands, an academic and barrister who has traced how the US came to sanction the practice after 9/11. It doesn't work and it costs us dearly, he tells Matthew Reisz

New AHRC deputy is keen to avoid past errors and to engage scholars in planning ahead, says Zoe Corbyn

Christopher Eyre on an attempt to enliven a history of the pharaonic era with an ordinary girl's life story

Catherine Belsey writes on the futility of war

June Purvis on the mother of all resources

Tom Palaima on a long, bloody clash of cultures

Alex Danchev on the brutish heart of empire

Charles Townshend is taken aback by a combative and oddly incurious survey of the enemies within

Critics of US foreign policy may live to regret finger-wagging from the sidelines, argues Paul Cornish

Neil Smith on Noam Chomsky's meticulous dissection of the rhetoric of the American empire

Helen Wilcox is transfixed by the rolling and rollicking life of a saucy Grub Street manipulator

Kamilla Elliott devours many slices of a pie that has fascinated collectors and academics alike