Volume 40 Issue 7 July 1990

Jansen and the Jansenists

Friends of truth or intellectual subversives undermining the authority of both Rome and Versailles? Alexander Sedgwick follows the story of how a theological argument about grace and freewill became enmeshed in the politics of seventeenth-century France.

Nomonhan – The Unknown Victory

 Did a battle fought on the borders of Mongolia in September 1939 between Russia and Japan on behalf of their client states decisively affect the outcome of the Second World War and save, among others, Britain from defeat? Philip Snow looks at the background to the battle and the significance of its result.

Just Desserts

Angela Morgan discusses sugared heritage and a new exhibition

Night-Witches, Snipers and Laundresses

In its desperate battle to fight off the advancing Germans, the Soviet Union called on its women to play as active and probably more wide-ranging a role as its men. John Erickson records the military and civilian efforts during the Great Patriotic War.

Corpus Christi - Inventing a Feast

The medium and message - Miri Rubin looks at how the changing theology and doctrine of late medieval Christianity led to the creation of a popular event with social and hierarchical overtones.

The Minority of Henry III

'Woe unto the land whose king is a child'; but despite a foreign claimant and rebellious barons, a nine-year-old monarch was steered successfully to adulthood in twelfth-century England by loyal guardians. David Carpenter tells how it was done and its impact on future constitutional developments in the Middle Ages.