Europe

Letter writing was an important part of the transformation that notable medieval scholar Charles Homer Haskins describes as the ‘Twelfth Century Renaissance’. This, among other changes, was a time of great intellectual progression in Western Europe.

‘You are seeking many things of me who am exceedingly busy, and you send a messenger who presses me too much at his own pleasure’. Writing in 1076, it is unsurprising that Pope Gregory VII

In April 1961, a reader named Victor de Blancpré sent a letter to François Cavanna, founder and editor-in-chief of Hara Kiri magazine and Charlie Hebdo, saying: ‘Never have I read such a heap of insanity

Coronations in post-war Europe have not generally been key events in fundamental political transformations. But forty-three years ago today, one country witnessed exactly such a coronation. On 22 November 1975, Spain stood at a historical

Mushroom clouds in burning skies, wandering skulls, and thousands of people confined in atomic shelters as insects: the final decade of the Cold War brought a global proliferation of visual expressions of the anxiety of

I struggle with memorial days. I can’t help thinking that they make little impact on the notion of memorialism, and before you know it we’ve all moved on without giving a second thought to the