Collecting the World - The Life and Curiosity of Hans Sloane

James Delbourgo

Hans Sloane was the greatest collector of his time, and one of the greatest of all time. His name is familiar today through the London streets and squares named after him, but the man himself, and his achievements, are almost forgotten. Born in the north of Ireland, Sloane made his fortune as a physici...

The Children's Block: Based on a true story by an Auschwitz survivor

Otto B Kraus

'We lived on a bunk built for four but in times of overcrowding, it slept seven and at times even eight. There was so little space on the berth that when one of us wanted to ease his hip, we all had to turn in a tangle of legs and chests and hollow bellies as if we were one many-limbed creature, a Hindu...

The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization Began

Valerie Hansen

When did globalization begin? Most observers have settled on 1492, the year Columbus discovered America. But as celebrated Yale professor Valerie Hansen shows, it was the year 1000, when for the first time new trade routes linked the entire globe, so an object could in theory circumnavigate the world. T...