The Pillage of India
A study of two books about British military and commercial activities and eventual rule in India, by the historian William Dalrymple and the writer and serving politician Shashi Tharoor.
Number One Id
A 1998 story about The Last King of Scotlland and Idi Amin, written by the novelist Hillary Mantel.
The Bard
The powerful story of a man who made it his mission to preserve the songs sung to him by fellow prisoners in a Nazi concentration camp.
Living Through the Blitz
One from the New Yorker’s archive, this brief September 1940 dispatch from London describes life during the blitz and marvels at the “cheerfulness and fortitude with which ordinary individuals are doing their jobs under nerve-racking conditions.”
Infographics in the Time of Cholera
A look at an early example of journalistic data visualisation in The New York Tribune, used to visualise a cholera outbreak in 1849.
How do we know her?
Hillary Mantel displays her trademark historical insight, deftness of touch, and ability to create a sense of immediacy in this review of a 2017 book about the wealthy and influential 16th century noblewoman Margaret Pole.
The Wild Ones
The story of a groundbreaking research expedition down the Colorado River in 1938, undertaken by two female botanists out to prove people wrong. It’s a story at once personal and symbolic, with a narrative arc spanning over half a century.
Queens of Infamy: Njinga
The story of a queen who battled colonial invaders as well as domestic and familial politics, and in doing so shaped her country’s history.
Anything That Flies, On Anything That Moves
A visualisation with accompanying narrative that examines the data behind the two million bombing missions the US undertook on Southeast Asian countries in the 1960s and 70s.
Queens of Infamy: Josephine Bonaparte, from Malmaison to More-Than-Monarch
The second instalment in the extraordinary life of Josephine Bonaparte that takes her from marriage to Napoleon to Empress of France.