The Long Recovery — When England Quietly Changed Direction
Every civilization eventually faces a question no one wants to answer: What happens after everything falls apart? The England we left at the end of the fourteenth century had endured almost everything history could throw at it. The Black Death had returned more than...
The Peerage and The Gentry — England’s Governing Class
Westminster Hall has witnessed coronation feasts, royal courts, state trials and the evolution of Parliament. Yet England was never governed from this room alone. Beyond these walls, thousands of members of the peerage and gentry quietly carried out the work that kept...
From Conquest to Kingdom — England’s High Medieval Ascent (1066–1300)
York offers a clue to one of the great stories of medieval England. Walk through the city on a busy Saturday morning and, after a while, something begins to feel oddly familiar. The market is bustling. Shops line narrow streets. The cathedral dominates the skyline....
George Gilbert Scott (1811–1878) — The Architect Who Rebuilt Medieval Britain
Walk into almost any English cathedral and there is a good chance George Gilbert Scott has already been there. York, Lichfield, Ely, Chichester, Peterborough, Rochester, St Albans, Hereford, Exeter, Durham, Salisbury—the list seems almost endless. By the time of his...
Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898) — When Beauty Became a Form of Stewardship
Walk into almost any Victorian church in England and, if the sun is shining, there is a good chance Edward Burne-Jones will introduce himself before anyone mentions his name. Light pours through one of his stained-glass windows, filling the stone with deep blues,...
John Ruskin (1819–1900) — When Beauty Became a Moral Question
Why do some buildings move us while others leave us completely unmoved? It is a deceptively simple question, yet one that occupied John Ruskin for much of his life. He wrote about paintings, cathedrals and architecture, but he was never really writing about art...
Cyrus the Great — When Power Learned Restraint
The ancient Greeks loved a good origin story, and Herodotus gives Cyrus one of the best. According to the historian, Cyrus survived an order for his execution as an infant, was secretly raised by a shepherd, and first revealed his true nature while playing "king" with...
Ptolemy I Soter — When Knowledge Found a Home
Some people change history by conquering kingdoms. Others change it by deciding what is worth preserving. Ptolemy I Soter managed to do both. Most people first meet him as one of Alexander the Great's generals, standing somewhere in the background while history's most...
Alexander the Great — When the World Grew Larger
Alexander the Great never seemed content to stand still. Before he reached the age of thirty, he had marched farther than any king before him, defeated the greatest empire of his day, founded cities across three continents, and begun imagining a world unlike anything...
Nebuchadnezzar II — When Civilization Inspired Wonder
Some rulers are remembered for the battles they fought. Others for the laws they wrote. Nebuchadnezzar II is remembered for something rather different. More than 2,500 years after his death, the very name Babylon still conjures images of towering walls, magnificent...
- The Long Recovery — When England Quietly Changed Direction
- The Peerage and The Gentry — England’s Governing Class
- From Conquest to Kingdom — England’s High Medieval Ascent (1066–1300)
- George Gilbert Scott (1811–1878) — The Architect Who Rebuilt Medieval Britain
- Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898) — When Beauty Became a Form of Stewardship
