Charles de Gaulle is Sentenced to Death
Court-martialled in absentia on 2 August 1940, the Vichy regime confiscated de Gaulle’s property and condemned him to death.
Political
‘José Martí Reader: Writings on the Americas’ review
José Martí Reader: Writings on the Americas, edited by Deborah Shnookal and Mirta Muñiz, collects the works of Cuba's ‘Apostle of Independence’.
Ship Shape: British Naval Strategy After Napoleon
British military engagement in northwest Europe did not pause after Waterloo and resume in 1914. The intervening century saw fluctuations in French power – and the creation of a strategic system to control it.
‘Gods, Guns and Missionaries’ by Manu S. Pillai review
Hinduism predates colonialism by thousands of years, but in Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity Manu S. Pillai explains how European ideas shaped Hindutva.
The Great Destroyer: Cyrus, Babylon, and Jerusalem
The ancient world found him to have achieved greatness and thrust it upon his name, but was the destruction of Babylon Cyrus’ divinely ordained destiny?
‘Make the Foreigner Pay’: When Britain Tried Tariffs
In 1903 a group of politicians tried to sell tariffs as a panacea to all of Britain’s problems. Would the public buy it?
‘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.
Plato’s Last Word to Dionysius
How to reform an ancient Greek tyrant? Plato’s final advice to Dionysius the Younger was not well received.
‘Strike’ by Sarah E. Bond review
Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire by Sarah E. Bond assembles a case for the power of the worker in ancient Rome.
Did Germany Read Mein Kampf?
A huge bestseller and undisputed guide to the Nazi worldview, did Germans actually read Mein Kampf?