History Daily: The Death of Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth II has been the Queen of the United Kingdom since 1952; it is difficult for most British people to imagine life without her at the head of the monarchy. But behind the scenes, there are detailed plans for her death and funeral.

Does the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year reign also signal the end of the British monarchy as an institution? What role can an inherited, ceremonial figurehead play in today’s modern world? Turns out: maybe an important one.

To understand the pressures on democracy in the 21st century, it’s important to understand what modern democracy is and where it came from. In The Origins of Political Order, political economist Francis Fukuyama explores the development of political systems from prehistory to the eve of the American and French revolutions in order to show how and why modern democracies evolved.

Fukuyama argues that a stable democratic society requires three components: a strong state, the rule of law, and accountability. In this guide, we’ll explore each of these components in detail and show, for example, how Chinese bureaucracy created the first modern state and how local English legal disputes eventually led to democracy. Along the way, we’ll build on, update, and sometimes challenge Fukuyama’s claims by referring to other works of political theory such as Sapiens, Humankind, and How Democracies Die.

Elizabeth II has been the Queen of the United Kingdom since 1952; it is difficult for most British people to imagine life without her at the head of the monarchy. But behind the scenes, there are detailed plans for her death and funeral.

In The Silk Roads, historian Peter Frankopan identifies Central and Western Asia as the crossroads of human civilization, the birthplace of the world’s major religions, the battleground where the great empires of history rose and fell, and the garden from which today’s global economy first sprouted. He argues that understanding the East is crucial to our understanding of the world—particularly for Westerners who have lost this global perspective.

In ancient times, trade routes known as the Silk Roads first brought European merchants to the luxury markets of the East, enabling the flow of both material goods and ideas from East to West. According to Frankopan, the Silk Roads have always been history’s crucial connection point, spreading not just luxury goods like silk and spices, but also technology, religion, languages, cultures, ideologies, and even conflicts and diseases. In this guide, we explore Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads, while also incorporating insights and feedback from other scholars to supplement his analysis.

Elizabeth II has been the Queen of the United Kingdom since 1952; it is difficult for most British people to imagine life without her at the head of the monarchy. But behind the scenes, there are detailed plans for her death and funeral.

Does the end of Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year reign also signal the end of the British monarchy as an institution? What role can an inherited, ceremonial figurehead play in today’s modern world? Turns out: maybe an important one.

To understand the pressures on democracy in the 21st century, it’s important to understand what modern democracy is and where it came from. In The Origins of Political Order, political economist Francis Fukuyama explores the development of political systems from prehistory to the eve of the American and French revolutions in order to show how and why modern democracies evolved.

Fukuyama argues that a stable democratic society requires three components: a strong state, the rule of law, and accountability. In this guide, we’ll explore each of these components in detail and show, for example, how Chinese bureaucracy created the first modern state and how local English legal disputes eventually led to democracy. Along the way, we’ll build on, update, and sometimes challenge Fukuyama’s claims by referring to other works of political theory such as Sapiens, Humankind, and How Democracies Die.

Elizabeth II has been the Queen of the United Kingdom since 1952; it is difficult for most British people to imagine life without her at the head of the monarchy. But behind the scenes, there are detailed plans for her death and funeral.

How did a trading company, ostensibly formed for commerce, come to rule most of the Indian subcontinent and its millions of people for over 50 years? In The Anarchy, historian William Dalrymple charts the rise of the English East India Company during the 17th and 18th centuries, from a small outfit of merchants into the imperialist superpower that established British colonial rule in India.

Dalrymple is an award-winning Delhi-based historian who has written extensively on European colonialism in the Eastern hemisphere. Our guide explores how the English East India Company rose to power by exploiting a period of chaos and instability in India—when the once-powerful Mughal Empire had collapsed into smaller kingdoms that vied to fill the power vacuum. In the midst of this anarchy, the English East India Company forged alliances, backed coups, installed puppet rulers, and built the largest army on Earth. Our commentary delves into background historical context, the fallout from these events, views from other historians, and political theory that sheds light on the company's machinations.