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BBC History Magazine

Jan 01 2020
Magazine

BBC History Magazine aims to shed new light on the past to help you make more sense of the world today. Fascinating stories from contributors are the leading experts in their fields, so whether they're exploring Ancient Egypt, Tudor England or the Second World War, you'll be reading the latest, most thought-provoking historical research. BBC History Magazine brings history to life with informative, lively and entertaining features written by the world's leading historians and journalists and is a captivating read for anyone who's interested in the past.

WELCOME

THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

Tunnel vision

Burning the midnight oil • A tweet from classicist Mary Beard claiming that she worked “over 100” hours per week sparked a fierce debate among fellow academics. ANNA WHITELOCK looks at the reaction online

‘Fake news’ found in Babylonian text

HISTORY IN THE NEWS • A selection of the stories hitting the history headlines

The Kurds at crisis point • In the wake of the recent Turkish offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, SEBASTIAN MAISEL traces the Kurdish people’s long and often bloody campaign to establish a nation state of their own

MICHAEL WOOD ON… • ANGLO-SAXON TREASURE

ANNIVERSARIES • DOMINIC SANDBROOK highlights events that took place in January in history

Idealism abounds as the League of Nations is founded

HIDDEN HISTORIES • DAVID OLUSOGA explores lesser-known stories from our past

LETTERS

BBC History Magazine

THE (not so) STINKY MIDDLE AGES • If there’s one thing we think we know about our medieval ancestors, it’s that they were mud-spattered, lice-infested and smelt like rotting veg. Yet the reality appears to have been far less pungent. Katherine Harvey digs the dirt on the medieval passion for cleanliness

THE MEDIEVAL HYGIENE GUIDE • Five tips for combating grime in the Middle Ages

DEFENDER OF DEMOCRACY • Before 1939, George Orwell feared that democracy was little better than fascism with a veneer of civility. Yet, by the start of the Second World War, he had come to regard it as humanity’s greatest defence against the rise of totalitarianism. Phil Tinline traces the author’s political journey to Nineteen Eighty-Four

“Upon her neck was blood… to this the men pointed, crying with horror, ‘A Vampyre!’” • With a new adaptation of Dracula set to be aired on BBC One, Richard Sugg takes us back 200 years to the unholy birth of ‘vampotainment’ – in a horror story contest on the shores of Lake Geneva, featuring the greatest poets of the age...

THE WALKING DEAD • Three more tales of blood-drinking demons

Q & A • A selection of historical conundrums answered by experts

DID YOU KNOW…?

Smile! You’re on camera • Our image of the Victorians is shaped by the photographs we see in history books – stern, austere and relentlessly severe. Yet there was a playful side to our 19th-century ancestors, and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones has the proof. Here he introduces a selection of portraits that show the sitters doing something entirely unexpected: smiling

THE MORNING AFTER • From emboldening the Ku Klux Klan to fuelling the rise of the Democrats, prohibition – which became law 100 years ago this month – had immense consequences for American society. Lisa McGirr reveals how the ban on alcohol changed a nation

Jeffrey Hudson The queen’s dwarf • He was born to a poor country family, but the diminutive Jeffrey Hudson rose to the dizzy heights of Charles I’s court. From duels and deeds of valour to enslavement by pirates, JOHN WOOLF tells the amazing story of Queen Henrietta Maria’s favourite

A queen against the odds • She was married as a teenager to a near-stranger in exchange for military aid. But Philippa of Hainault,...


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Formats

OverDrive Magazine

Languages

English

BBC History Magazine aims to shed new light on the past to help you make more sense of the world today. Fascinating stories from contributors are the leading experts in their fields, so whether they're exploring Ancient Egypt, Tudor England or the Second World War, you'll be reading the latest, most thought-provoking historical research. BBC History Magazine brings history to life with informative, lively and entertaining features written by the world's leading historians and journalists and is a captivating read for anyone who's interested in the past.

WELCOME

THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

Tunnel vision

Burning the midnight oil • A tweet from classicist Mary Beard claiming that she worked “over 100” hours per week sparked a fierce debate among fellow academics. ANNA WHITELOCK looks at the reaction online

‘Fake news’ found in Babylonian text

HISTORY IN THE NEWS • A selection of the stories hitting the history headlines

The Kurds at crisis point • In the wake of the recent Turkish offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, SEBASTIAN MAISEL traces the Kurdish people’s long and often bloody campaign to establish a nation state of their own

MICHAEL WOOD ON… • ANGLO-SAXON TREASURE

ANNIVERSARIES • DOMINIC SANDBROOK highlights events that took place in January in history

Idealism abounds as the League of Nations is founded

HIDDEN HISTORIES • DAVID OLUSOGA explores lesser-known stories from our past

LETTERS

BBC History Magazine

THE (not so) STINKY MIDDLE AGES • If there’s one thing we think we know about our medieval ancestors, it’s that they were mud-spattered, lice-infested and smelt like rotting veg. Yet the reality appears to have been far less pungent. Katherine Harvey digs the dirt on the medieval passion for cleanliness

THE MEDIEVAL HYGIENE GUIDE • Five tips for combating grime in the Middle Ages

DEFENDER OF DEMOCRACY • Before 1939, George Orwell feared that democracy was little better than fascism with a veneer of civility. Yet, by the start of the Second World War, he had come to regard it as humanity’s greatest defence against the rise of totalitarianism. Phil Tinline traces the author’s political journey to Nineteen Eighty-Four

“Upon her neck was blood… to this the men pointed, crying with horror, ‘A Vampyre!’” • With a new adaptation of Dracula set to be aired on BBC One, Richard Sugg takes us back 200 years to the unholy birth of ‘vampotainment’ – in a horror story contest on the shores of Lake Geneva, featuring the greatest poets of the age...

THE WALKING DEAD • Three more tales of blood-drinking demons

Q & A • A selection of historical conundrums answered by experts

DID YOU KNOW…?

Smile! You’re on camera • Our image of the Victorians is shaped by the photographs we see in history books – stern, austere and relentlessly severe. Yet there was a playful side to our 19th-century ancestors, and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones has the proof. Here he introduces a selection of portraits that show the sitters doing something entirely unexpected: smiling

THE MORNING AFTER • From emboldening the Ku Klux Klan to fuelling the rise of the Democrats, prohibition – which became law 100 years ago this month – had immense consequences for American society. Lisa McGirr reveals how the ban on alcohol changed a nation

Jeffrey Hudson The queen’s dwarf • He was born to a poor country family, but the diminutive Jeffrey Hudson rose to the dizzy heights of Charles I’s court. From duels and deeds of valour to enslavement by pirates, JOHN WOOLF tells the amazing story of Queen Henrietta Maria’s favourite

A queen against the odds • She was married as a teenager to a near-stranger in exchange for military aid. But Philippa of Hainault,...


Expand title description text