Political

Michael Antonucci discerns Byzantine origins in today's international power politics.

Elizabeth Manning looks at how an Enlightenment ruler enlisted opera in his struggle to homogenise and reinforce the Habsburg empire.

Brian Dooley assesses the incident which brought the world perilously close to nuclear war.

Norman Bainbridge looks at the events to mark Nottinghamshire's role in the English Civil War.

Paul K. Martin with an eyewitness account of Barcelona's rival Olympics of 1936.

By the late 1920s, Stalin and the Soviet Union seemed on the road to totalitarianism. Did the system spawn a monster – or a monster the system? 

When the Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931, resistance came not from the Chinese government, but from plucky local groups who waged guerrilla war, Anthony Coogan uncovers their little-known story and explains why it remained so.

Colin Richmond analyses the part played by the written (and spoken) word in shoring up popular allegiances to the rival dynasties

Enlightened despots or imperial new clothes? Nicholas Henshall takes a fresh look at the realities of power in the bureaucracies and rulers of ancien regime Europe.

From isolation to Great Power status: Richard Perren explains how a mania for Westernisation led to Japan's transformation at the turn of the century.