Local

The American soldiers who fought their way through the islands of the Pacific during the Second World War encountered fierce Japanese resistance but few local people. That all changed with the invasion of the Mariana Islands, says Matthew Hughes.

Peter Clark celebrates some of the ‘awkward squad’ associated with eastern England.

Roy Strong tells York Membery why the humble English parish church is a perpetual source of fascination and refreshment.

Janet L. Nelson looks at the history of this church in the small town in the North-Rhine Westfalia region of western Germany.

Richard Cavendish explores a quantity of bygones in the museum of social history.

Richard Hodges wanders through the medieval village of Rocca in Tuscany.

Richard Cavendish trawls through the exhibits to examine the legacy of the city's whaling and fishing industry.

Every commune had to have one - Diana Webb explains how the cult of a holy man or woman and civic PR went hand-in-hand in medieval Italy.

Aram Bakshian Jr. and Geoffrey D. Schad look at the Indian state of Hyderabad from the 18th century to the last days of the British Raj, and at its rulers who echoed the glories of the Mughal court.

New local history publications.

John M. MacKenzie looks at a legendary railway station.

J Mordaunt Crook examines the history of a Gothic church in West London.

An examination of an archaeological site in the Lincolnshire village of Fulbeck, by Dymphana Byrne.

Peter Biller looks at the restoration of one of England's finest remaining early town halls.

What was it really like to live in an English village at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign? To what extent was it a close-knit community? How deeply was it divided by wealth and religious belief? Was the village even an important part of the identity of its members? Susan Amussen addresses these questions in one village in East Anglia.

Susan Bayly looks into an Indian Museum in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

Ian Mitchell explores the Märkisches Museum devoted to the history of Berlin and the Mark Brandenburg.

The trade guilds of Venice, explains Richard Mackenney, were organisations with a surprising amount of political and economic power in the patrician Renaissance city.

1921 was an annus terribilis for the fishing communities of north-east Scotland - and the despair of the fisher folk, explains John Lowe Duthie, led them to religious fervour for consolation.

During the Reformation, writes Christine King, Tudor agents demolished many venerated shrines, and made great use of the frauds and trickeries that they claimed to have detected.

Geoffrey Bennett takes the reader on a visit to Spithead - the deep water channel that leads into Portsmouth Dockyard - which has been the scene of naval reviews by British monarchs since Henry VIII.

A.L. Rowse describes how the centre of administrative life in Cornwall has enjoyed a varied history, from Plantagenet to modern times.

William Seymour describes how a large area of Dorset and Wiltshire, abounding in deer, was hunted by King John and granted to Robert Cecil by James I.

Olwen Hedley visits Windsor Castle; neglected by the first two Hanoverian monarchs, it became a favoured residence of George III and Queen Charlotte.