Humanities

In addition to its firepower, Britain’s fleet exerted an immense soft power that underscored the imperial project, A.W. Purdue writes

Book of the week: Exquisite images trigger the sensations of terror and wonder that nature inspires, says Philip Hoare

Alison Baverstock, director of The KU Big Read, offers a dozen tips for anyone trying to engage a whole university community

Broader-based education addresses concerns over graduate skills, conference hears

Rachel Bowlby traces how a school of literary thought and its major figures hit the big time

It’s a myth that Confucianism kept China unprepared for war: the empire had guns and was not afraid to use them, Jonathan Mirsky writes

A study of the Fab Four’s legal woes reveals their naivety and reads like a thriller, says Martin James

Andrew Blake on a study facing up to the reality of working in the arts

Book of the week: Jane O’Grady on a thought experiment that is an endless platform for exploring ethical principles

Proportion of university staff training through Erasmus has more than doubled in six years, finds report

Giulia Miller on a study of anti-Semitism in the academy and the struggle of displaced scholars

A double biography of an Irish suffragette and a Polish count paints a vivid picture, says June Purvis

Flora Samuel on an architect’s thought-provoking examination of the design process

Continuing conflicts will limit collaboration between universities in Iran and in neighbouring Gulf nations, says scholar

Book of the week: Two approaches to the Holocaust are blended in a pioneering historian’s last work, Neil Gregor writes

Despite the challenges, Jill Derby sees multiple benefits to exporting this US model to the middle east

Persian migrants’ tales illuminate the attitudes and culture of Regency era, says Shahidha Bari

Organising and agitating online can be a powerful mover of change, Ivor Gaber finds

We are sleepwalking towards virtual transparency after an oversharing binge, discovers Paul Bernal

Elizabeth Cobbs on an enlightening and alarming study of how the central state has had to fight for its legitimacy

Scholarship, not ideology, drives this welcome effort to determine what is historical and what is not in the depiction of God, says Robert A. Segal

Heated debate and hours of staff time are worth it if students get the courses they need, says Charles Bailyn

We talk to the Princeton research scholar about being a fighter pilot, mindfulness and the existence of little green men

Egypt is route to exploring how modern politics privileges beliefs of majorities, finds Bård Kårtveit

Vladimir Tismaneanu on a study of one man’s journey from ‘Homo Sovieticus’ to ‘Homo Antisovieticus’

Victoria Harris on a study of the occupied city that makes powerful use of diary entries

The real-life versions of Philip Marlowe were more likely criminals than heroes, says Sharon Wheeler

Book of the week: Jasmine Allen admires the monumental scale and meticulous detail of a stained glass artist’s work

Was it beauty, race or rebelliousness that created a global icon? Joanna Lewis surveys the evidence

David Rosenthal on a Renaissance man who recorded in detail his obsession with the functional aesthetics his clothing and dress

Priyamvada Gopal ponders the emancipatory potential of the ‘poor relation’ of faith and charity

Responses of more than 24,000 undergraduates indicate limited development in areas such as creativity and citizenship over course of degree

Book of the week: A shared sense of precarity is at the heart of recent disparate mass protests, says Mary Evans

I had assumed stories about campus political correctness might be overblown. But the experience of my friend is an example of how deeply it permeates universities

New publishing model aims to make research accessible to all without charging authors

A search for shared motifs in folklore and Classics is impressively broad-ranging, says Barbara Graziosi

Marianne Franklin on a guide to help people escape the attentions of public and private bodies capturing and capitalising on our online actions

Survey also finds that women do more work with the general public than male researchers

How does a dandy pay for his lifestyle? Clare Brant follows a rake’s descent into crime, dissolution and disrepute

Book of the week: Beneath a bourgeois veneer is a secret history of defunct jobs and fascinating lives, says Paul White

Increase led by growth in number of international students

Preparing to launch its multidisciplinary degree, institution bids others across Europe to follow suit

AHRC-funded festival flags up an astonishing variety of collaborative projects

Lindsey Moore on a study of film and video from the Arabic-speaking world

Researchers have employed a comedian to help them reach out to a wider public

Duncan Wu on a study of marriage and motherhood

A Guilted Age: Apologies for the Past, by Ashraf H. A. Rushdy

Book of the week: Brace yourself for unusual keepsakes in a study of our attachment to corpses, says Deborah Lutz

Liang Xinsheng removed from deputy chair post after writing ‘radical opinions’ that had a ‘bad social influence’

Deborah Longworth salutes the range and reach in Everything to Nothing

This study of Muslim relationships between hosts, guests and religion is timely, says Tehseen Thaver

James Stevens Curl on an architect who designed some of the great Victorian buildings but was unjustly maligned

Vladimir Tismaneanu praises a study of the key players in East-West relations in the late 1980s 

Interpretation of what we are feeling should never be reduced to mere physiology, says Jane O’Grady

Green Paper recommends use of metrics, despite July report’s reservations

The history of a sanctuary where science meets art is an emotionally charged work, says Timothy Mowl

Howard P. Segal on a brilliant study exploring the conflict between free speech and instruction guides that may be used for violence

Vespucci, French military glory and recondite legal strategies: bibliographic confessions from the author of A Foot in the River: Why Our Lives Change – and the Limits of Evolution

A. W. Purdue on a study of the disparate groups in a movement often thought of as a united force

Ruth Richardson on the capital city’s great mists and smogs that have inspired, harmed and killed