Religion

In 1874 a choir of African American singers concluded a successful tour of Britain, singing songs that confronted American racism. Victorian audiences had never heard music like it.

Recent books by Greg Eghigian, Joshua Blu Buhs and Jeffrey J. Kripal demonstrate the challenges that historians face in making sense of Fortean times.

Britain’s dearth of Afghan informants provided an opportunity for a disinherited Indian prince and his son to present themselves as an authentic conduit to the Muslim world. Soon they were advising the nation on subjects from geopolitics to the powers of the occult.

Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore gives a human face to magic in medieval and early modern England.

A community of Ethiopian monk-scholars in Renaissance Rome brought their learning, language and liturgy into the heart of the Roman Church.

The Queen of the Night, rendered in clay in ancient Babylon, was evidently an important goddess who enjoyed considerable status – but who is she?

In The House Divided: Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East Barnaby Rogerson seeks geopolitical answers for ideological conflicts.

In the 17th century news spread that the Jewish messiah had finally arrived. Within a year he had converted to Islam. Who was he, and what had happened?

Lisbon’s convents were not just religious houses, but safe havens for the noblewomen of Portugal offering refuge from abusive husbands, unhappy marriages and a city swarming with ‘dogs and devils’.

Arriving in the West in the 19th century, the Buddha of legend was stripped of supernatural myth and recast as a historical figure. What do we really know about him?