Empire

James Kinross tells the story of the French Foreign Legion, a force famous for fighting in Africa, Russia, Mexico, Indo-China and France itself, as well as across the world.

Roderick Cameron explanis how, during the 50 years that followed Governor Phillip’s landing at Botany Bay in 1788, convicts and free settlers turned the inhospitable country of New South Wales into a flourishing colony.

J.H. Plumb documents the repeated attempts by British explorers and abolitionists to open West Africa for the Empire.

Eric Robson looks at the constitutional background - and legacies - of the American Revolution.

Emile de Groot on the often fractious but ever-intimate relationship between European powers and Egypt.

Arthur Waley on the pioneering French explorer and early scholar of Indian culture.

T.H. McGuffe analyses the failure of Admiral Byng to relieve the besieged British forces against French onslaught.

A.J. Halpern queries the source of Russia's disputed status as a European state.

Christopher Sykes delivers a historical backdrop to mid-20th century tension on the Persian Gulf.

A man of deep convictions, George III ruled at a time “when kings were still expected to govern. That he failed to acquire “true notions of common things”, Lewis Namier writes, was “perhaps the deepest cause of his tragedy.”

S. Pollard discusses one of history's most controversial financial reformers.

While it is right to seek justice for those tortured and mistreated during the Kenyan Emergency of the 1950s, attempts to portray the conflict as a Manichean one are far too simplistic, argues Tim Stanley.

Motives of commerce and trade, Eric Robson suggests, carried just as much weight in the founding of the 13 American colonies as the desire of Puritan emigrants for liberty of conscience and a life of independence.