- Article
- Article
The chymist’s trade card
An 18th-century trade card reveals far more than its owner may have intended.
- Book extract
- Book extract
A history of sex for sale
Kate Lister’s cultural history of the sex trade puts sex workers centre stage. In this extract, she argues why the way we write, think and talk about sex work matters.
- Article
- Article
Fantastic beasts and unnatural history
Find out how a 17th-century compendium of the natural world came to present fantastical beasts –like dragons – as real, living creatures.
- Article
- Article
A brief history of tattoos
The earliest evidence of tattoo art dates from 5000 BC, and the practice continues to hold meaning for many cultures around the world.
- Article
- Article
Booze and bad behaviour
Our love of alcohol is like a party that’s lasted nine centuries. But there are signs that the demon drink is losing its appeal.
- Article
- Article
Inhaling happiness and gasping for a high
The rapid, short-lived high we get from whippets, reefers and vapes can be accompanied by long-term health consequences. The search is on for safer ways to get stoned.
- Article
- Article
Deadly doses and the hardest of hard drugs
The invention of the modern hypodermic syringe meant we could get high – or accidentally die – faster than before. Find out how this medical breakthrough was adapted for deadly uses.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Sockets and stumps
Historian Emily Mayhew has met soldiers who have survived the seemingly unsurvivable. Here, she explores the part prosthetics play in the process of military rehabilitation.
- Article
- Article
The yogi as hermit, warrior, criminal and showman
How the modern world changed the life and reputation of the yogi.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Inside the Cold War mind
Martin Sixsmith explores the competing national psyches of Russia and America, and a world divided between their irreconcilable visions of human nature.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The 200-year search for normal people
Sarah Chaney poses the question we’ve likely all asked at some point in our lives: 'Am I normal?’, and explores whether normality even exists.
- Book extract
- Book extract
What the wind can bring
In this extract from ‘This Book is a Plant’, Amanda Thomson shares a newfound fascination with flowers, and reveals why our relationship with plants can also be complicated.
- Book extract
- Book extract
You know the drill
Richard Barnett opens wide the true meaning of a healthy mouth.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Ayurveda: Knowledge for long life
The story of medicine in India is rich and complex. Aarathi Prasad investigates how it came to be this way.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The science of why things spread
From deadly pandemics to viral tweets, Adam Kucharski explores what makes something contagious.
- Book extract
- Book extract
My important, ridiculous nose
The nose is a much-maligned appendage, but it’s a powerful organ capable of invoking powerful emotions from past memories and sexual attraction.
- Article
- Article
Yoga gets physical
Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.
- Article
- Article
Vivekananda’s journey
How a young Indian monk’s travels around the world inspired modern yoga.
- Article
- Article
Invisibility
Why do menopausal women feel invisible? Because nobody talks about menopause or because society doesn't value older women?
- Article
- Article
Acid and the sexual psychonauts
How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.
- Article
- Article
The origins and meanings of pharmacy symbols
What have snakes, unicorns and crocodiles got to do with pharmacies? The history of these modern signs goes back to the Greek gods.
- Article
- Article
Ginger’s role in cures and courtroom battles
Some people will use a dose of ginger to help with hangovers – but it hasn’t always been a friend to the thirsty.
- Article
- Article
Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination
The Black Death, AIDS and Ebola outbreaks are part of our collective cultural memory, but the Spanish flu outbreak has not been.
- Article
- Article
Indian botanicals and heritage wars
Colonial botanical texts, as astonishingly beautiful as they are, may cast very dark shadows.
- Article
- Article
Sacred cows and nutritional purity in India
Apoorva Sripathi explores the complex reasons behind India’s recent boom in all things dairy – beginning with a 1970s Western food-aid programme.