Interwar period

Penicillin: The Quiet Cultivator

The story of penicillin is well known, as are those Nobel Prize winners who were honoured for their part in its discovery. But one man’s contribution has been overlooked. Malcolm Murfett sets the record straight on the biochemist Norman G. Heatley.

Before the Fall Out

Roger Hudson examines a photograph from 1920 taken on the eve of a profound split on the French Left.

Treaty of Versailles: Was Germany Guilty?

The Treaty of Versailles, negotiated by the fractious Allies in the wake of the First World War, did not crush Germany, nor did it bring her back into the family of nations. Antony Lentin examines a tortuous process that sowed the seeds of further conflict.

Edward VIII: Backing the Wrong Duke

Anne Sebba revisits Michael Bloch’s article, first published in History Today in 1979, on the historian Philip Guedalla’s enthusiastic but misguided support for his friend, Edward VIII.

The Myth of Nazi Germany's Foreign Ministry

The idea that the German foreign office during the Nazi period was a stronghold of traditional, aristocratic values is no longer tenable according to recent research, as Markus Bauer reports.

Mussolini, Abyssinia and British Imperialism

Mussolini’s colonial land grab in Abyssinia provoked a political storm in Britain. The links between fascism and imperialism were not lost on the British left nor by the empire’s black subjects.