Al Qaeda detonates a nuclear weapon in Times Square during rush hour, wiping out half of Manhattan and killing 500,000 people. A virulent strain of bird flu jumps to humans in Thailand, sweeps across Asia, and claims more than fifty million lives. A...

Louis XIV ruled France from his bedchamber. Winston Churchill governed Britain from his during World War II. Travelers routinely used to bed down with complete strangers, and whole families shared beds in many preindustrial households. Beds were expe...

When it was published in 2015, Andrew Hartman's history of the culture wars was widely praised for its compelling and even-handed account of the way they developed and came to define American politics as the twentieth century drew to its close. Recei...

Not too long ago, it might have seemed impossible that cannabis would step out of the shadows into the mainstream. But now, as legalization sweeps the globe, a new weed culture is evolving with its own set of rules – and thousands of new devotees eag...

<p>The witch came to prominence – and often a painful death – in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient worl...

Pronunciation governs our regional and social identity more powerfully than any other aspect of spoken language. No wonder, then, that it has attracted most attention from satirists. In this intriguing book, David Crystal shows how our feelings about...

When did the British Government become the world's largest drugs pusher? What tree is frequently used to treat cancer? Which everyday condiment is the most widely traded spice on the planet? Plants are an indispensable part of our everyday life. Fro...

Few virtues are as celebrated in contemporary culture as openness. Rooted in software culture and carrying more than a whiff of Silicon Valley technical utopianism, openness – of decision-making, data, and organizational structure – is seen as the cu...

The Roma or Romani people, commonly called gypsies, comprise one of the largest ethnic minorities in the European Union, with significant populations in the Balkan Peninsula as well as Spain, France, Russia, and the Ukraine. Persecution of the Roma d...

In late seventeenth-century London, the most provocative images were produced not by artists, but by scientists. Magnified fly-eyes drawn with the aid of microscopes, apparitions cast on laboratory walls by projection machines, cut-paper figures reve...