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THIS ISSUE’S CONTRIBUTORS

ON THE COVER: CHRISTINE DE PIZAN LECTURING TO

WELCOME

FEBRUARY 2023

ANNIVERSARIES

HELEN CARR highlights events that took place in February in history

Britain’s century of strike action

Recent months have seen thousands of workers – including nurses, railway employees and postal staff – go on strike around the United Kingdom. RICHARD TOYE explores the nation’s history of industrial action, and the extent to which it has been driven by political ideology or practical concerns

MICHAEL WOOD ON…

THE HISTORY OF SOCIAL HOUSING

The long fight over abortion rights in the United States

Fifty years ago, the US Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v Wade ruling guaranteed access to abortion throughout the United States – adecision that was reversed last summer. ALLISON MCKIBBAN charts the complex, often contradictory currents that have shaped women’s reproductive rights in America

HISTORY NEWS IN BRIEF

Last of the Dambusters dies George “Johnny” Johnson,

HIDDEN HISTORIES

KAVITA PURI explores lesser-known stories from our past

LETTERS

LETTER OF THE MONTH Fact and fiction While

Q&A

A selection of historical conundrums answered by experts

BOOKS

POLITICAL “Historians have spent decades debunking the argument

“Indigenous Americans who travelled across the Atlantic were horrified by inequalities in European society”

CAROLINE DODDS PENNOCK talks to Ellie Cawthorne about her new book tracing the remarkable stories of Indigenous Americans who voyaged to Europe after 1492

Trading on reputations

LUBAABA AL-AZAMI has mixed feelings about an insightful but sometimes Eurocentric look at the development of the East India Company

Northern exposure

Kai Thomas on In the Upper Country, his story of a formerly enslaved woman in Canada

Centuries of iron

JONATHAN BOFF is impressed by a comprehensive and insightful military history of Germany and its southern neighbours

Suspicions of sorcery

MALCOLM GASKILL has high praise for an engaging and still-relevant account of a 16th-century witch-hunt

THE CLASSIC BOOK

Jessie Childs on an evergreen exploration of popular beliefs in Tudor and Stuart England

Liberal views

RICHARD TOYE is intrigued but ultimately unconvinced by a detailed account of the state of British liberal politics in the first years of the 20th century

Breast practice

Milk: An Intimate History of Breastfeeding by Joanna

Shelf esteem

Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient

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ENCOUNTERS

DIARY By Jonathan Wright, Rhiannon Davies and Samantha

HISTORY COOKBOOK

TASTE Pommes boulangère Pommes boulangère was popular before

ENCOUNTERS PODCASTS

Every issue we highlight a recent edition of our podcast. You can find it along with more than 1,500 previous episodes at our website: historyextra.com/podcast

Disraeli’s country retreat

Every great man needs a suitably great home – or so the eminent Victorian politician and writer Benjamin Disraeli believed. YORK MEMBERY explores the prime minister’s beloved Buckinghamshire manor and gardens

ENCOUNTERS TRAVEL

TRAVEL TO… BANGKOK, THAILAND

Here’s a selection of the exciting content that’s available on our website historyextra.com

Georgian and Victorian same-sex couples Dr Anthony Delaney

NEXT MONTH

March issue on sale 16 February 2023

MY HISTORY HERO

Novelist Monica Ali chooses

The age of transformation

Those who write off the Middle Ages as an unchanging backwater are overlooking the seismic advances – in everything from scientific knowledge to self-awareness – that redefined what it meant to be human, argues Ian Mortimer

From clowns to kayaks: a history of fear and loathing

The past is studded with incidents when seemingly innocuous objects and situations have sparked repulsion in unfortunate sufferers. Kate Summerscale explores what the history of five phobias reveals about the mental states of people through the centuries

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BBC History Magazine is Britain’s bestselling history magazine. We feature leading historians writing lively and thought-provoking new takes on the great events of the past.

The voice of a female golden age

The14th century was a time of great change in England – not least for women, who enjoyed more autonomy, work opportunities and wealth. Marion Turner explains what Chaucer’s outspoken Wife of Bath reveals about their lives and thoughts

The Holocaust

An SS soldier murders a Ukrainian Jew in

THE POET, THE GARDENER AND THE WITCH: FORGOTTEN VOICES OF TUDOR ENGLAND

The exploits of monarchs, bishops and explorers have filled volumes, but they don’t tell the full story of life 500 years ago. Lucy Wooding introduces eight people whose experiences shine a light on the hopes and fears of ordinary people in the 16th century

How people power fuelled England’s century of chaos

Charles I’s clashes with parliament may dominate the history books, but behind the turmoil of the 17th century lay something deeper: a political awakening of the people

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