Second World War

The kapo trials of the early 1960s confronted a difficult question: how should Israel judge Jews accused of complicity in the Holocaust?

‘Genocide’, the Holocaust episode of The World at War, was pioneering when it first aired. Does it stand the test of time? 

Pacy and even-handed, Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass is unlikely to be bettered as a portrait of the Tokyo trials.

How did Uyghur chieftain Yolbars Khan come to be buried in a Chinese Nationalist grave in Taipei? The answer reveals much about China’s violent relationship with its most western province.

One Fine Day: Britain’s Empire on the Brink by Matthew Parker and Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain by Charlotte Lydia Riley are filled with ambition.

In the late 19th century a new trend captured the Czech people –gymnastics. But sokol was more than just exercise: a healthy body was a healthy nation and the Czechs wanted independence.

Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf was an unexpected bestseller, whose success rose and fell with its author.

As new crimes are committed, new laws must be written to punish them. When it comes to crimes committed by states like Putin’s Russia, who decides?

As Jewish lapidaries were held in Nazi concentration camps, diamond sales soared in the US. Both sides saw gemstones as integral to the war effort.