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Image of the Week: the Artemision Bronze
The Artemision Bronze, thought to be Zeus or Poseidon, c. 460 BC, at the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Some gods are just cooler than others. IMage: E. Park The post Image of the Week: the...
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The rediscovery of cremation in Italy and Germany
The first official cremation in Italy, at the Cimitero Maggiore, Milan. L’Illustrazione Italiana 14 (1876), 212. In January 1876, an unprecedented event took place at Milan’s Cimitero Maggiore:...
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Charles Bradlaugh and George Jacob Holyoake: their contrasting reputations as...
Originally given as a paper to the Leicester Secular Society, 11 September 2022 George Jacob HOlyoake and Charles Bradlaugh when young. Introduction Bradlaugh and Holyoake were the two men under whose...
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Freethought in the 21st century: the Freethinker in conversation with Liberas
How might the history of freethought inspire its development in the 21st century? I was recently interviewed by Christoph De Spiegeleer via Zoom about the history of freethought and open enquiry and...
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Christopher Hitchens and the long afterlife of Thomas Paine
This is an edited version of a paper originally given at Freethought in the Long Nineteenth Century: New Perspectives, a conference at Queen Mary University of London, on 9 September 2022. Thomas...
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Humanists and ethical reform in mid-twentieth-century Britain
Bertrand Russell in 1957. Image: Fotograaf Onbekend / Anefo via Wikimedia Commons. Humanists contributed immeasurably to ethical debates in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Relatively small in...
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‘The real beauty comes from contemplating the universe’: humanism with Sarah...
Humanly Possible, by Sarah Bakewell. Image: Chatto & Windus 2023. Sarah Bakewell is what you might call a non-organised humanist. That is not to say she is disorganised (far from it), but that she...
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‘There is nothing easy or empty about humanity and reason’: in memoriam Jim...
Centenary celebrations at the Freethinker, July 1981, with Jim Herrick centre. Photograph by Barry Duke, editor of the Freethinker from 1998–January 2022. page copyright: Freethinker (1981). Life...
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Books From Bob’s Library #1: Introduction and Thomas Paine’s ‘The Age of Reason’
Introducing Books From Bob’s Library, a semi-regular series in which freethought book collector and National Secular Society historian Bob Forder delves into his extensive collection and shares stories...
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Year in review: 2024
Both the world at large and the Freethinker itself have been through some pretty big changes this past year. We’ll get to the world soon, but the Freethinker saw a change of editor in April when I took...
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