When the United States’ table tennis team was invited to China in 1971, the trip was about far more than sporting competition. Dubbed ‘ping-pong diplomacy’, it heralded a thaw in diplomatic relations between the two nations.
The story of a young William Blake warning Thomas Paine of impending danger is one of the great myths of English Romanticism. But did it happen?
There was no known remedy available to help those afflicted with ‘autographomania’. Spreading far and wide in the late 19th century, the obsession with collecting autographs held ‘all sorts and conditions of men in its deadly grip’.
In 1986, the world’s superpowers were each rocked by disasters occurring just three months apart. Technological prowess had driven the Cold War: what did it mean for it to fail in such catastrophic circumstances?
A Cold War thriller imagined the United States caught in the midst of a military coup. Surprisingly, it was endorsed by the president himself, who recognised its power as a cautionary tale.
Photographs of the Sámi taken in the 19th and 20th centuries act as ‘emotional archives’, offering an alternative history of Europe’s longest surviving indigenous people.
London’s West End came to life in the late 19th century, its glamorous attractions illuminated by innovations in electric light. The night, once associated with peril and danger, was reclaimed for leisure.
In 1917, the American novelist Edith Wharton travelled in Morocco seeking ‘barbaric splendor’ and an escape from war-torn Europe. Her French colonial hosts, keen to gain US support for their Protectorate, were happy to oblige.
Despite defeat in the Spanish Civil War, veterans of the International Brigades would soon face fascism again. Experiences and connections forged in Spain would prove key in the fight against Hitler and beyond.
The Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan is sometimes explained as a result of ‘ancient hatreds’. In reality, it is nothing of the sort.
