How the South Became Republican
America’s southern states were once strongholds for the Democratic Party. In 1952, Eisenhower decided to win them over.
Volume 74 Issue 9 September 2024
‘Hitler’s People’ by Richard Evans review
Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich by Richard Evans asks what manner of men made themselves the Führer’s ‘paladins’.
An Ottoman Winter in Toulon
The unholy alliance between France and the Ottoman Empire in 1530 caused great concern but had little military success.
Gustav Vasa: The Father of Modern Sweden?
A bloody massacre in Stockholm’s city square set Sweden on a course for independence under the leadership of Gustav I Vasa. A master of the ethos of 16th-century monarchy, his legacy is complicated.
Why Do Civil Wars Happen?
How do dissent and disagreement tip over into civil war? And is peace, when it comes, ever absolute?
Putting Mothers on Death Row
US law requires a stay of execution for pregnant women on death row. In practice, however, this once only applied to mothers considered ‘good enough’.
‘A Revolutionary Friendship’ by Francis D. Cogliano review
A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic by Francis D. Cogliano explores a relationship more complex than that of comrades turned rivals.
Edward VII’s Forgotten Colonial Conflicts
The Edwardian era is often seen as a peaceful interlude between the violence of Victorian expansion and the First World War. In reality, Edward’s reign bore witness to dozens of conflicts across the Empire.
‘The Tame and the Wild’ by Marcy Norton review
In The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492, Marcy Norton shows through Indigenous American practices and beliefs that colonisation was a catastrophe for the natural world.
Scandals of the Glorious Revolution
Rumours about the sexual proclivities of King William III began to spread as soon as he took the English throne. What went on behind the closed doors of the royal court had implications for the nation.