Volume 59 Issue 4 April 2009

Who Was Henry VIII?

Suzannah Lipscomb looks beyond the stereotypes that surround our most infamous monarch to ask: who was Henry VIII and when did it all go wrong? 

South Africa’s Forgotten War

White South Africans who fought in the long ‘Border War’ to maintain apartheid now find themselves in a country run by their former enemies. Gary Baines examines their continuing struggle to come to terms with the conflict and their efforts to have their voices heard.

Silence, Exile and Cunning: Culture and Politics in the 1930s

As Europe polarised between Right and Left in the 1930s, many artists and authors nailed their reputations to either extreme. Others, says Nigel Jones, took refuge in the ‘inner emigration’ of silence. Even in stable Britain, writers felt compelled to take a stand – often in the service of the secret state.

The Forgotten Christian World

In the first millennium, Christianity spread east from Palestine to Iraq, and on to India and China, becoming a global religion accepting of, and accepted by, other faiths. But with the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, Christianity’s eastern journey came to an end. Philip Jenkins recovers this lost history.

The Amritsar Massacre

Troops under the command of Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer killed hundreds of unarmed demonstrators on 13 April 1919.

No Marx without Engels

Tristram Hunt describes how Friedrich Engels financed the research behind his friend Karl Marx’s epic critique of the free market, Das Kapital.