Learning Japanese
Official secrecy and institutional rivalry obscured the achievements of two crash programmes hastily launched to teach Japanese during the Second World War.
History Today
Fake Views
The 19th-century craze for spiritualism ‘resurrected’ the dead through manipulated photography, a practice that boomed with the trauma caused by war – though it was not without its sceptics.
Do You Exist?
The nightmarish power of the Soviet passport.
What Chips did Next
A ringside seat to British domestic politics, from Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler in October 1938 to the fall of Mussolini in July 1943.
The Young Crusaders
Inspired by the fashion for Boy Scout groups, Lord Beaverbrook started his own youth movement in support of his pro-Empire campaign.
Before the Taliban
Reporting from the frontlines of the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union.
![kolkhoz [collective farm] women working in a field, 1930s.](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_list/public/2021-12/Soviet-Letters.jpg?itok=VN101ZF4)
Loveless Letters
In 1935 Stalin declared ‘life has become better’. This was clearly not the case for everyone, but feelings had to be expressed very carefully.
East Meets West
The historical currents that have shaped modern Central Asia.
Saving Face
The Renaissance face provided clues about the wealth and health of its owner. Those who had been disfigured were often mistreated, but to alter one’s appearance carried a stigma of its own.
Väinämöinen and the Sampo
A hero of Finnish folklore helps his nation find its identity.