The mad have always been with us. Bethlehem Hospital, or `Bedlam' as it became in cockney slang, is the world's oldest psychiatric hospital. Founded in 1247 it developed from a ramshackle hovel to the
Edward Prince of Wales, better known as “Bertie,” was the eldest son of Queen Victoria. Charming and dissolute, he was a larger-than-life personality with king-size appetites. A lifelong womanizer, Be
If Paris is the city of love, then London is the city of lust. From the bath houses of Roman Londinium to the sexual underground of the twentieth century and beyond, this is an entertaining, vibrant c
Before AIDS or Ebola, there was the Spanish Flu — This narrative history marks the 100th anniversary of an epidemic that altered world history.In January 1918, as World War I raged on, a new and terri
In the dying months of World War I, Spanish flu suddenly overwhelmed the world, killing between 50 and 100 million people. German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers called it Flanders
The life of William Shakespeare, Britain's greatest dramatist, was inextricably linked with the history of London. Together, the great writer and the great city came of age and confronted triumph and
