Portraits Archive

Akbar the Great hunting. Mughal Scool, 1590. British Museum. Artist Unknown.

portraits

Akbar the Great – the ultimate Renaissance ruler

One of the few leaders on whom history has bestowed the title ‘the Great’, Akbar was a noted connoisseur of cultures and architect of political pluralism.

Jessica Frazier January 11, 2021

From left to right: Dorothy McDonald (wife of John, née Eisner), Leon Trotsky and John McDonald in Coyoacan, Mexico, in the 1930s. McDonald was recruited to help defend Trotsky from charges made at Stalin's show trials. Credit: General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University

portraits

John McDonald – poker-playing popularizer of game theory

The Fortune journalist and best-selling author is largely forgotten now, but he played a key role in shaping mid-20th century perceptions of strategy and the role of the corporatio..

Lawrence Freedman January 4, 2021

George Kennedy Young (middle) stands between fellow espionage writers Andrew Boyle (left) and Major Douglas Sutherland (right)

portraits

George Kennedy Young: Banker, Writer, Soldier, Spy

Over a remarkable and tempestuous career, George Kennedy Young rose to become Deputy Director of MI6 at the height of Britain’s Cold War. But his evermore extreme ideology prevente..

Rory Cormac December 14, 2020

portraits

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky – Rocket Man

The Russian recluse, a scientific self-starter who left school at 14, developed pioneering theories of space travel that anticipated the great feats of the Space Race fifty years l..

Tim Marshall December 8, 2020

Ary Scheffer's 1855 'Saint Augustine and Saint Monica'.

portraits

The many ways of seeing Saint Monica

Monica – mother to Augustine of Hippo, lionized by the Latin Church – is a women of many names and many more mysteries.

Gillian Clark December 2, 2020

1947, A picture of Basil Henry Liddell Hart

portraits

Basil Liddell Hart and the Art of Peace

Having witnessed first-hand the mechanised onslaught of the Great War, Captain Basil Liddell Hart sought a philosophy of warfare based in the prudent use of technology, psychology..

Rob Johnson November 24, 2020

portraits

Anna Komnene – the princess who chronicled Byzantium’s changing fortunes

Byzantine princess Anna Komnene, banished to a convent for her political ambition, devoted her gifts of observation to charting the fortunes of her father's empire – etching her le..

Peter Frankopan November 16, 2020