- Article
- Article
Medics and the bomb
Would a nuclear attack on the UK overwhelm the NHS? At the height of the Cold War, despite government optimism, medics predicted doom.
- Article
- Article
Foraging for a taste of the past
Follow tips from a professional forager to recreate delicious 18th-century recipes from plants growing wild in parks and on urban wasteland.
- Article
- Article
It’s getting mighty crowded
Mid-20th-century population-density research on mice produced a whiskered apocalypse, predicted to become the fate of humans too. But perhaps a more compassionate approach could fend this off.
- Article
- Article
Finding consolation in social isolation
Feeling isolated and anxious during the lockdowns of the last year, Tanya Perdikou found solace in reconnecting to her past and reaching out to neighbours in the present.
- Article
- Article
The house of Joan
The longueurs of hospital stays and enforced inactivity were the spur to Joan’s precise tailoring skills and flamboyant creations, all to the benefit of her fashion-loving sisters.
- Article
- Article
Parks and politics in Brixton’s past and present
Gentrification is creeping along Railton Road, but racial inequality still lingers in memories of the 1980s, and in the continuing lack of green-space access.
- Article
- Article
How to rehabilitate the concrete jungle
A huge concrete housing estate from the 1960s, now seen as an ecological mistake, is being drastically redeveloped, compounding the environmental errors. Owen Hatherley posits a more creative solution.
- Article
- Article
The sum of my parts
Testing positive for a rogue gene meant Jessica Furseth was more susceptible to cancer. After the years of anger and dissociation from her body that followed, she began to pick up the pieces.
- Article
- Article
The island of unclaimed bodies
In New York, those who live and die on the extreme edges of society are buried on an isolated island, often forgotten and unmourned. But recent legal changes aim to reduce stigma and restore their dignity.
- Article
- Article
Yoga gets physical
Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Tracing the roots of our fears and fixations
Kate Summerscale explores the history of our anxieties and compulsions, and the new phobias and manias that are always emerging.
- Article
- Article
Cataloguing Audrey
Work begins in earnest to restore order to the archive Audrey Amiss kept of the minutest happenings in her life. Like detectives, the archivists search for subtle clues to chronology in the mass of materials.
- Long read
- Long read
Rehab centres and the ‘cure’ for addiction
Guy Stagg takes us on a brief history of rehab centres and their approaches to addiction and recovery.
- Article
- Article
Going viral in the online anti-vaccine wars
‘Anti-vaxxers’ are taking their message online using powerful images as well as words. But is the pro campaigners’ response any better?