Interwar period

Anne Sebba revisits Michael Bloch’s article, first published in History Today in 1979, on the historian Philip Guedalla’s enthusiastic but misguided support for his friend, Edward VIII.

The idea that the German foreign office during the Nazi period was a stronghold of traditional, aristocratic values is no longer tenable according to recent research, as Markus Bauer reports.

Richard Cavendish describes the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary on May 27th, 1936.

In October 1935 Mussolini’s Fascist Italian forces invaded Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) at a crucial moment in the run-up to the Second World War. Daniel Whittall looks at the complex issues the invasion raised in Britain and the responses to it, especially from black Britons.

Juliet Gardiner explains why her new book examines a short period of the 20th century and how she attempts to achieve a panorama of experiential history that gives readers a real feel for a slice of time.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, France was riven by political division as extremes of left and right vied for power. Annette Finley-Croswhite and Gayle K. Brunelle tell the tragic and mysterious story of Laetitia Toureaux, a young woman swept up in the violent passions of the time.

Nick Smart scrutinises Chamberlain's foreign policy and the historiography of appeasement.

Martin Pugh argues that life during the interwar years was brighter than has often been suggested, in spite of its association with economic depression and the rise of Fascism.

Andrew Boxer considers explanations for France’s disastrous foreign policy between the wars.

Thomas Meakin asks to what extent Italian Fascism represented a triumph of style over substance.