History Today

Ian Kershaw wonders whether there was one single path of German history leading inexorably to Nazism.

F.M.L. Thompson looks at the public reception of the artist George Elgar Hicks.

Paul Rich argues that while the official response to post-war immigration was slow to develop, the tensions and white backlash of the late fifties marked its emergence as a national political issue.

Fifty years ago this month, Adolf Hitler was appointed Reich Chancellor of Germany by the aging President Hindenburg. How were the Nazis able to 'seize power' in this way? Jeremy Noakes begins our special feature by explaining their success.

'War, far from being an exact science, is a terrible and impassioned drama' wrote Baron de Jomini in 1862. John Keegan argues that it is this drama that military historians must confront in their probe into man's past.

W.A. Coupe argues that German cartoonists ridiculed Hitler as a Chaplinesque little man, so it was easy not to take him seriously – until it was too late.

John Keegan reflects on the motives for war throughout human history.

The Italian patriot's style of leadership – and his famous red shirts – were a legacy of his South American experience and proved an inspiration to Latin American radicals for many generations.

As with his mentor, Christopher Wren, it is only necessary to look around, explains Bryan Little, to see the monuments to James Gibbs, that prolific early eighteenth-century architect.