Volume 42 Issue 10 October 1992

Alan Ryan discusses what happens when history comes to an end

John Biffen reflects on the by-election campaign that elected one of his predecessors from Shropshire to the House of Commons.

Tony Aldous discusses the work of the English Historic Towns Forum

Richard Cavendish on an association dedicated to the MP, publisher, soldier, Christian and governor-general of Canada

Harriet Jones assesses the historic blueprint for Britain's post-war Welfare State and what part it played in Labour's 1945 election landslide victory.

Kenneth Asch on Berlin's opera house, the Deutsche Staatsoper.

Hitler's march into the demilitarised Rhineland heralded Churchill's 'gathering storm' – but could the Fuhrer's bluff have been called and the Second World War prevented? Sir Nicholas Hederson, who as Britain's ambassador in Washington during the Falklands crisis saw diplomatic poker eventually turn to war, offers a reassessment of the events of 1936.

A mission to the heathen? Hugh MacLeod looks at working-class attitudes towards organised Christianity in fin de siecle Berlin and other urban centres.

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