Who Killed Aung San?
In 1947, as independence loomed, Burma’s prime minister-in-waiting, Aung San, was assassinated. Was it his political rivals, the military, or the British?
Cold War
‘The Log Books’ by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith review
The Log Books: Voices of Queer Britain and the Helpline That Listened by Tash Walker and Adam Zmith reveals unsung – but not unheard – LGBTQ+ heroes of Switchboard.
The End of USAID
In the postwar era bounteous US foreign aid reshaped the world, for better or worse. With the culling of USAID those days are over.
Britain’s Private Investigators on Trial
In the 1970s private investigators in the UK came under attack for their distasteful methods and dubious legality. What did it mean to have a right to privacy?
Inside London’s Chinese Embassy
China plans to move its British embassy to a controversial new London site. It will carry 150 years of history with it.
‘Manga’s First Century’ by Andrea Horbinski review
Manga’s First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905-1989 by Andrea Horbinski reveals the colourful companion to Japan’s turbulent 20th century.
Jerzy Popiełuszko’s Masses for Poland
The murder of a priest, Jerzy Popiełuszko, in 1980s Poland exposed the cracks in the communist regime.
The ‘Scandal’ of Scotland’s Unmarried Mothers
The high incidence of illegitimate births in rural Scotland was front-page news in the early 1950s. Within two decades, what had once seemed an aberration was increasingly becoming the norm.
Peace Talks: Letter from America 80 Years On
Eighty years ago the BBC tried to remedy postwar Anglo-American friction with Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America.
Defending the Tichborne Dole
The introduction of bread rationing by the postwar Labour government threatened the centuries-old tradition of the Tichborne Dole and, with it, the national understanding of what England was.