Cold War

U Thant, with under-secretary-general for special political affairs Ralph Bunch, at the United Nations, Bernard Gotfryd, 1966. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

‘Peacemaker’ by Thant Myint-U review

Peacemaker: U Thant, the United Nations and the Untold Story of the 1960s by Thant Myint-U captures the optimism and ambition of Burma’s bridge between worlds.

Jess M. Ritchie demonstrating AD-X2 to the Senate Select Committee of Small Business, 1953. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Public Domain.

AD-X2: When US Politicians Took on Science

The dismissal of a government scientist over the unproven battery additive AD-X2 galvanised the American scientific community in the 1950s.

Kennedy files illustration © Ben Jones/Heart Agency.

Lost in the Kennedy Files

The release of government documents related to the Kennedy assassination will keep scholars busy for years, but will we learn anything new?

Passers-by looking at a modern sculpture in the window of a Wimpy Bar in London, c.1961. Photograph by John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins. © Estate of John Hopkins.

Wimpy vs McDonald’s: The Battle of the Burgers

In the 1970s and 1980s Wimpy faced off with McDonald’s in a battle over what it meant to eat British.

Henry Kissinger poses for a portrait in the Situation Room in the basement of the West Wing at the White House, Washington, DC, 1969. Photo © Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Getty Images.

‘Zbig’ by Edward Luce and ‘Henry Kissinger’ by Jérémie Gallon review

Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Cold War Prophet by Edward Luce and Henry Kissinger: An Intimate Portrait of the Master of Realpolitik by Jérémie Gallon reveal the parallel lives of the Cold War frenemies.

Wreckage of the plane which crashed in Mongolia in 1971, killing Lin Biao. Newscom/Alamy Stock Photo.

The Lin Biao Incident

On 13 September 1971 a plane carrying Mao’s anointed heir crashed in Eastern Mongolia. What really happened to Lin Biao?

Reconstruction of the murder of Achmed Bouchiki in Lillehammer by Mossad, 1973. NTB/Alamy Stock Photo.

Playing God: Mossad’s Murder of Achmed Bouchiki

European intelligence agencies assisted Mossad’s Wrath of God assassination campaign, while their governments condemned them.

Spanish tourism illustration © Ben Jones/Heart Agency.

Spain Was Different: Tourism Under Franco

How did Spain, Western Europe’s last dictatorship, become one of its most popular tourist destinations?

‘Linda Vesco instructs Edith and Peggy’ at the Beauty Farm, 17 August 1963. Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library.

Reduce and Seduce at the Teenage Beauty Farm

Malibu’s 1960s Beauty Farm aimed to get a new generation of teenagers marriage-ready

Arabian American Oil Co drilling rig in the desert, Saudi Arabia, by Robert Yarnall Richie, 1948. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University. Public Domain.

‘Saudi Arabia: A Modern History’ by David Commins review

How did a Gulf backwater become a global powerbroker? Saudi Arabia: A Modern History by David Commins explores the uneasy alliance between oil, autocracy, and Wahhabism.