Interwar period

Richard Cavendish describes the maiden voyage of the Queen Mary on May 27th, 1936.

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.

The League of Nations has been much derided, but it laid the foundations for an international court and established bodies that the United Nations maintains today.

Juliet Gardiner explains why her new book examines a short period of the 20th century and how she attempts to achieve a panorama of experiential history that gives readers a real feel for a slice of time.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, France was riven by political division as extremes of left and right vied for power. Annette Finley-Croswhite and Gayle K. Brunelle tell the tragic and mysterious story of Laetitia Toureaux, a young woman swept up in the violent passions of the time.

Nick Smart scrutinises Chamberlain's foreign policy and the historiography of appeasement.

In 1926 Umberto Nobile became a hero of Mussolini’s Italy when he piloted Roald Amundsen’s Norge over the North Pole. Two years later his reputation went down with his airship.

Martin Pugh argues that life during the interwar years was brighter than has often been suggested, in spite of its association with economic depression and the rise of Fascism.

Andrew Boxer considers explanations for France’s disastrous foreign policy between the wars.

To what extent did Italian fascism represent Mussolini’s triumph of style over substance?