Volume 75 Issue 8 August 2025

Cyrus restores the vessels to the Temple of Jerusalem, by Gustave Doré for the Bible de Tours, 1843. Bridgeman Images.

The Great Destroyer: Cyrus, Babylon, and Jerusalem

The ancient world found him to have achieved greatness and thrust it upon his name, but was the destruction of Babylon Cyrus’ divinely ordained destiny?

Pope Innocent III declaring the crusade against the Cathars and an attack on the Albigensians, miniature from the Grandes Chroniques de France ou de Saint Denis, 14th century. British Library/Bridgeman Images.

Hunting Heretics: Inside the Medieval Inquisition

More than 5,000 people were interviewed during the Great Inquisition of medieval Toulouse. What did this mean for those ordinary people called to give evidence?

‘Flattening Him Out or Broadening the Basis of Taxation’, anti-tariff poster. LSE Library. Public Domain

‘Make the Foreigner Pay’: When Britain Tried Tariffs

In 1903 a group of politicians tried to sell tariffs as a panacea to all of Britain’s problems. Would the public buy it?