Political

Imperial Sweden - Image and Self-image

David Kirby discusses how Sweden's sudden rise to prominence in 17th-century Europe provoked much soul-searching both within and without the country on its nature, its culture and its destiny.

Gandhi and the Christian Imperialists

'In my Father's house there are many mansions'... but whether or not they could accommodate Gandhi and Hindu nationalist aspirations was a question that exercised British theologians and Christian politicians between the wars. Gerald Studdert-Kennedy charts the relationship between them and the apostle of non-violence against the British Raj.

Rhodesia's War of Independence

Paul Moorcraft looks at the war to maintain white supremacy in what is now Zimbabwe, a hundred years after Cecil Rhodes carved out a British colony.

De Ruvigny's Irish Refuge

Embittered Huguenot whose policies went hand in hand with repression of Catholics in William III’s Ireland or enlightened instigator of a unique French enclave which contributed to the 18th-century Ascendancy? In the summer which sees the tercentenary of the Battle of the Boyne, John Stocks Powell looks at the fortunes of Portarlington and its founding father.

France, Burgundy and England

'Gaul in three parts' - Charles Giry-Deloison discusses how new scholarship is affecting our view of a fifteenth-century triangle of power and diplomacy in Northern Europe.

Stalin and de Gaulle

'You played your hand well. Well done.' High praise indeed from Stalin to an uneasy ally, as John Young describes in this account of the one and only meeting of 'Uncle Joe' and France's 'Man of Destiny'.

Rewriting Russia's Revolution

Evan Mawdsley discusses how scholarship both inside and outside the Soviet Union, spurred on by the political somersaults in the East, is revising our view of Lenin, the events of 1917 and after.

King John's Maundy

England's royal black sheep may well turn out to be the instigator of the ancient ceremony linking Church and Crown. Arnold Kellett explains how this came about.