يحاول ذهب - حر

Lost and found

July 2020

|

BBC History Magazine

RICHARD SUGG delves into the murky depths of Britain’s social history with a book that dredges up the hidden stories of everything we have chucked away over the last 500 years

- RICHARD SUGG

Lost and found

Rummage: A History of the Things We Have Reused, Recycled and Refused to Let Go by Emily Cockayne Profile, 400 pages, £16.99

Would you like to know the origins of the word ‘shoddy’, the phrases ‘breeze blocks’ and ‘taking the piss’, or the forgotten histories of the delicious neologisms ‘bonzoline’ and ‘kamptulicon’? Or learn how to make an eco-house powered by its own toilet? Then Rummage is the book for you. Since 2007, Emily Cockayne has been publishing richly intriguing alternative histories. And the latest may be her best yet – a kind of alternative history of everything in Britain across the past 500 years.

المزيد من القصص من BBC History Magazine

BBC History UK

BBC History UK

The stories we tell

LIZANNE HENDERSON enjoys a new history of folklore through the ages that explores some lesser-known avenues

time to read

1 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

BBC History UK

"Africa exerted a profound influence on cultures of resistance to slavery, yet its role is often overlooked"

SUDHIR HAZAREESINGH speaks to Danny Bird about how enslaved people, who needed no lessons in freedom from white abolitionists, organised themselves to fight their oppressors

time to read

9 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

BBC History UK

The first British curry

ELEANOR BARNETT prepares a dish with Indian influences that was designed to appeal to Georgian English tastes

time to read

2 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

Emperor Jahangir and Shah Abbas literally bestride the world like colossi

WATCHING THE RECENT SPECTACLE OF THOSE latter-day emperors President Xi of China and India's Narendra Modi hugging each other at the summit in Tianjin, my mind cast back to an earlier image of a pan-Asian summit.

time to read

3 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

BBC History UK

THE SLIPPERY TRUTH OF THE DREYFUS AFFAIR

The wrongful conviction for treason of a Jewish army captain in France in the late 19th century not only tore the country apart, but also, as Mike Rapport reveals, sparked a flood of ‘fake news’ that has echoes in our own turbulent times.

time to read

10 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

BBC History UK

Spectral beasts and hounds from hell

From infernal black dogs attacking churches to ravening, red-eyed brutes on remote roads, Britain has long been haunted by fearsome canine phantoms.

time to read

8 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

Of ruins and revenants

Across Britain, hundreds of once-thriving medieval settlements were abandoned for reasons ranging from disease to economic collapse.

time to read

2 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

BBC History UK

Why are we so hung up with historical dates?

From 1066 to 1918, our obsession with battles, elections and even voyages of discovery risks distorting a true understanding of the past

time to read

11 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

The physicist as hero

JIMENA CANALES argues that a new study of Einstein misses some of the complexity in his story

time to read

2 mins

November 2025

BBC History UK

Different class

MILES TAYLOR is absorbed by a study of how Britain's hereditary peers have negotiated changing times

time to read

2 mins

November 2025

Translate

Share

-
+

Change font size