Volume 14 Issue 12 December 1964

The largest of African republics possesses an ancient and composite civilization, but the form that the country takes today owes much to two British colonial administrators.

A century ago, writes Patrick Renshaw, Karl Marx and his colleagues founded in London the first International Workingmen's Association, a body from which many varieties of socialism and communism have since developed.

A continuation of Lucy Masterman’s recollections of Sir Winston Churchill as a member of the Liberal Governments before the First World War.

For nearly four hundred years the “Peaceful and Tranquil City” was the administrative centre of Japan, writes George Woodcock, and for more than a thousand years remained the home of the Japanese Emperors.

Ross Watson describes how, as sovereign of Sweden until 1654 and later as an exile in Rome, Queen Christina was a lavish and discriminating patron of the arts.

Seven hundred years ago King Henry III was defeated at Lewes by Simon de Montfort; their abiding joint memorial is Edward the Confessor’s Abbey which Henry III refounded. By Martin Holmes.