Situated at the crossroads of three continents, the Middle East has confounded the ambition of conquerors and peacemakers alike. Christianity, Judaism and Islam all had their genesis in the region but with them came not just civilisation and religion but also some of the great struggles of history....

Enigmatic, intriguing and fabulously wealthy, Jay Gatsby throws lavish parties at his West Egg mansion to impress Daisy Buchanan, the object of his obsession, now married to bullish Tom Buchanan.Over a Long Island summer, his neighbour Nick Carraway, a writer and a cousin to Daisy, looks on as Gatsby and Daisy's affair deepens.Tragedy...

It began with the horse-drawn carriage and ended with the aeroplane, an era, beginning in the 1830s and ending with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, that saw the British Empire - the largest the world had seen - dominate the world. British ingenuity in the fields of technological development and the heavy industry of its Industrial...

St George is a figure that bridges many worlds. At the heart of the myths and legends surrounding this English icon lies the story of an Early Christian Martyr persecuted by the Roman Empire. England is only one country to have adopted this legendary soldier saint as their patron, others include Germany, Armenia, Hungary, Portugal and...

The world of Freemasonry exerts a powerful influence on the modern imagination. In an age when perceived notions of history are being increasingly questioned and re-examined it is perhaps inevitable that secretive societies such as the Freemasons find themselves at the centre of considerable speculation and conjecture. To some they...

Secret Societies in one form or another have existed throughout the history of human culture. But what is their appeal? What is it that makes so-called respectable people indulge in peculiar ceremonies, dressed in fanciful costumes uttering blood-curdling oaths of loyalty with the threat of death hanging over them should they reveal the...

It's one of the most successful - and surprising - of phenomena in the entire crime fiction genre: detectives (and protodetectives) solving crimes in earlier eras. There is now an army of historical sleuths operating from the mean streets of Ancient Rome to the Cold War era of the 1950s. And this astonishingly varied offshoot of the...

Artists and writers have long felt the lure of the South. Goethe was revitalised by his journey to Italy; Nietzsche took flight southwards to begin his life anew, while DH Lawrence sought the health-giving southern sun in Sicily and Sardinia. The South Seas cast a spell over Stevenson, Melville and Gauguin, while it was the frozen South...