History

The US university system has a complex and often misunderstood past, says Howard P. Segal  

Sarah Eltantawi admires a well-researched study of the origins and growth of the terrorist organisation

Book of the week: A secret cartography project is a route to the past – and your house, finds Jerry Brotton

Explore the gladiator of cities before it became a stop on the Eurotrash circuit, says Emily Michelson

It is wrong and discriminatory to assume that religion is a barrier to academic or professional excellence, says Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Clive Bloom enjoys a sociological study of why a group of rich layabouts became crooks – and how society dealt with them

God was a priority for the often unchristian soul who discovered gravity, says Graham Farmelo

Do you recognise seven stereotypes in literature and film? Richard Joyner appraises a study ranging from Sherlock to Frankenstein

Exhibition showcasing stories of infertility across the ages – involving suspended uteruses and frogs – is part of the Being Human festival

Developers working with academics compete for $150,000 prize

Les Gofton enjoys an excellent study of how record sleeve artwork shaped consumerist values

Book of the week: Christopher Hill praises an engaging but limited history of the role of law in achieving peace

Penn teaching assistant claims she is 'under attack' for calling on historically marginalised groups first

Ulrike Zitzlsperger on an engaging account of the city’s attraction and what it tells us about society and politics

Book of the week: Communism around the world was shaped by its opportunistic leaders, finds Yvonne Howell

Book of the week: Elizabeth Cobbs praises a history that argues persuasively against US exceptionalism

Many immigrants in Renaissance times were not slaves but professionals, learns Lucy Wooding

Robert Eaglestone praises an absorbing account of eminent scientist Michael Danos’ life that straddles biography and history

Matthew Reisz considers different styles of scholarship and whether we are forced to choose between them

The distinguished historian talks to Matthew Reisz about his latest book and his new role as president of the British Academy

Half of Third World Quarterly editorial board resign in protest over ‘case for colonialism’ essay

A. W. Purdue on a study that views the drink as the centrepiece of a new international economy

The discomforts felt and described by five writers form the focus of this literary study, writes Lennard Davis

An ambitious study that sets musical history within the political context of the birth of the modern state never manages to sing, says Mark Berry

Berkeley scholar of the Renaissance remembered

The Warburg professor discusses folk practice, emptying Milwaukee’s bins, and bargain cinema tickets

If we are going to build societies of peace and consensus, we have to accept each other’s villains as elements of our common past, says Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Book of the week: How far did two thinkers sway each other during a 26-year fellowship? Biancamaria Fontana writes

Peking University joins the top 20 of the Times Higher Education subject table for the first time

Book of the week: Meet the women whose lusty revolution changed the sexual culture of the US, says Laura Frost

A generation of young women chose dancing over more ‘respectable’ pursuits, finds Clare Griffiths

A militaristic organisation that emerged in Warsaw in 1929 was accused of fascism – but were its violent actions justified, asks Geoffrey Alderman

Protest movement against racial oppression in US belongs to a long tradition, says Martin Myers

Fred Inglis travels the bumpy road from Victorian workhouse to the modern British benefits system

Panikos Panayi follows the struggles and achievements of those who made this country their home amid difficult circumstances

Witwatersrand conference hears that scholars have much to learn from material that activists are seeking to make public

Meeting with representatives of the Cuban exile community have helped shaped plans for its flagship research institute

James Stevens Curl on a tome that emphasises the physician/naturalist’s role in transforming cabinets of curiosities into major institutions of the Enlightenment

Free market ideology has contributed to ‘vaccine hesitancy’, endangering us all, says Harry Collins

A study of one of Europe’s leading thinkers on sexuality contends that brutality is a force behind much queer activism and political thinking

Do ancient cultural ideas drive the insistence that Greece pay all its bills in full? asks Emma Gee

Book of the week: Bryan Cheyette straddles truth and fiction in observer accounts of anti-Semitic persecution

To properly appreciate a work of art we must judge it, not simply adhere to the modern paradigm of explaining it in context, contends Gary Day

‘Archive fever’, the desire to know one’s lineage, is a focus of this judicious study, says Devorah Baum

The professor of history discusses the ‘crisis of multiculturalism in Europe’

Quislings who joined Nazis to survive were erased from Russian history, observes Jonathan Mirsky

Catherine Clinton enters the beguiling lost world of a complex literary figure and seeker of truth

We talk poverty, political correctness gone mad and the comfort of whisky with the outspoken historian

A slim volume masters a millennium’s worth of material, but women fall away, says Rachel Moss

James Stevens Curl heaps praise on a fascinating study and pays tribute to the scholarly tenacity that it is built on

Academics investigating militarism and war must explore their own assumptions as well as those of their societies, event hears

A. W. Purdue chews over a grim account of how civilised nature crumbles when starvation looms

Sharon Wheeler delights in casting a made-for-TV 17th-century tale laced with sex and the dark arts

Hotly anticipated figures on salaries show that for subjects such as economics and law, the university attended has stronger link to high earnings

Steven Franklin lays bare the questions and doubts that go through his mind as he sits down to work on his thesis

Catherine Clinton admires an intimate portrayal of US presidents’ wives and those they subjugated

Number of bachelor's degrees awarded in field down 5 per cent year-on-year

Richard Williams on a study of Tinseltown, a place where dreams and death, success and tragedy, and fantasy and reality collide

Book of the week: Richard Larschan traces the steps of the young tourists who forged a borderless post-war identity

Vice-chancellor believes international scholars can be tempted away from the golden triangle and to the North of England