Jean-Jacques Rousseau: as relevant as ever

Theo Hobson: Jean-Jacques Rousseau – part 1: The philosopher's thought still has the power to challenge our deepest assumptions on identity, religion and the Enlightenment

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World Without World War I by Richard Ned Lebow – review

Richard Ned Lebow imagines how European history would have unfolded if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not been assassinated in 1914, writes Ian Thomson

Alexandre Dumas: swashbuckling musketeers are only half the story

John Dugdale: The BBC's adaptation of The Three Musketeers departs strikingly from the original, with its 23-year-old D'Artagnan, its Made In Chelsea lookalike and its pistols, but such liberty-taking ignores Dumas's influence as a seminal historical novelist

Anne Brontë: the unsung sister, who turned the gaze on men

Beulah Maud Devaney: Charlotte and Emily Brontë gave us romanticised, byronic heroes, but Anne refused to wear rose-tinted glasses when dealing with male alcoholism and brutality

Inside Llewyn Davis: the book behind the Coen brothers film

Bob Dylan called him his first New York muse, yet Dave Van Ronk never gained the recognition he deserved. Inside Llewyn Davis draws on his story. By Richard Williams

12 Years a Slave: the book behind the film

As Steve McQueen's Oscar favourite 12 Years a Slave opens at cinemas, Sarah Churchwell returns to the 1853 memoir that inspired it – one of many narratives that exposed the brutal truth about slavery, too long ignored or sentimentalised by Hollywood

January’s Reading group: Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon

This month, our look at the first world war begins with a long run-up from a gilded Edwardian age. Sign up now!

Big Brother is watching you e-read Mein Kampf

Richard Lea: The supposed privacy which has sent electronic editions of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf soaring up the charts isn't really all that private

Which is the best book on the causes of the first world war?

Readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific concepts

Japan hits back at China over Voldemort comparisons

Both sides have now likened each other to Harry Potter villain in diplomatic row played out in articles in British press

12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup – extract: ‘I thought I must die beneath the lashes’

Northup, born a free man in New York State, was drugged and kidnapped in 1841 by two men who sold him to the notorious Washington slave trader James Burch…

12 Years a Slave and the roots of America’s shameful past

Henry Louis Gates, historical consultant on 12 Years a Slave, talks to Andrew Anthony about Steve McQueen's film and why America remains a divided nation

Armistead Maupin: San Francisco’s chronicler calls time on his saga

Hermione Hoby: His Tales of the City have delighted readers for four decades and brought gay life into the mainstream. Now the landmark series is coming to an end as the ninth volume is published

Michael Gove, using history for politicking is tawdry

Tristram Hunt: The British left supported the 1914-18 conflict – which was far more complex in its origins than the education secretary's simplistic assertions admit

First world war centenary is a year to honour the dead but not to glorify

Michael Morpurgo remembers the stories of sacrifice and valour that inspired him to write the acclaimed War Horse