USA

Max Beloff profiles the "real author of the Constitution" and one of the most extraordinary of the USA's Founding Fathers.

Taking a historiographical angle, Marcus Cunliffe describes how, in 1861, the American federal experiment broke down, and there ensued the greatest and most hard-fought of modern wars before that of 1914.

Arnold Whitridge recounts how, at the dawn of the 19th century, General Bonaparte sold to the United States the vast Bourbon heritage along the banks of the Mississippi, which is now the American Middle West.

Accused of cowardice at the Battle of Minden, and often-cast for the role of villain when he was Colonial Secretary, Lord George Germain, writes Eric Robson, nevertheless had many of the qualities of a successful statesman.

For sixteen years a Congressman and Senator, John Randolph was the most gifted conservative spokesman of the American South. Russell Kirk charts his singular career.

Since the 1980s the American family has evolved towards greater diversity and complexity. Yet, paradoxically, it is the essentially conservative nuclear family forged in the 1950s that continues to hold sway as a touchstone in US politics and culture, says Tim Stanley.

US presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a Mormon, which is a problem for some voters. But, says Andrew Preston, so was the Catholicism of John F. Kennedy and it did not stop him winning the 1960 election.

Two hundred years ago Britain and the United States went to war. The conflict was a relatively minor affair, but its consequences were great, says Jeremy Black.

Graeme Garrard recalls Isaac Brock, the Guernsey-born army officer still celebrated in Canada for his part in defending British North America from the United States in the War of 1812.

In the summer of 1941 a collection of paintings by serving members of the London Fire Brigade  was exhibited in the United States. Anthony Kelly describes the success of a little-known propaganda campaign celebrating Britain’s ‘spirit of civilian heroism’.

The boxer's great victory over James J. Braddock took place on June 22nd, 1937.

Roger Hudson on the vitriolic reaction to Paul Robeson's open-air concert in Peekskill, New York, 1949.