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Freethought and birth control: the untold story of a Victorian book depot

This article was first given as a paper at ‘Freethought in the Long Nineteenth Century’, a conference held at Queen Mary University of London on 9-10 September 2022. Victorian Birth Control appliances...

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Is all publicity good publicity? How the first editor of the Freethinker...

G.W. Foote, portrait in the SEcular Chronicle, 1878 In an early Freethinker editorial, George W. Foote commented that ‘The public now-a-days is in a great hurry, you must attract its attention before...

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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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