Second World War

Under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, public ceremonies honouring the eternal life of Italy’s far-right dead have grown larger. 

‘One historical mystery I’d like to solve? Was there a written Führer Order for the “Final Solution”? Unlikely, but I’d like to know.’

In spring 1944 the Allied invasion of France seemed inevitable. D-Day’s success was contingent on deception of the enemy. For that, officials turned to the press.

Cita Stelzer’s Churchill’s American Network and David Reynolds’ Mirrors of Greatness seek to bring Churchill’s contemporaries and adversaries out of his shadow.

The kapo trials of the early 1960s confronted a difficult question: how should Israel judge Jews accused of complicity in the Holocaust?

How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War by Kimmo Rentola argues that political guile as much as military might stopped the Soviets in their tracks.

‘Genocide’, the Holocaust episode of The World at War, was pioneering when it first aired. Does it stand the test of time? 

Pacy and even-handed, Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia by Gary J. Bass is unlikely to be bettered as a portrait of the Tokyo trials.

How did Uyghur chieftain Yolbars Khan come to be buried in a Chinese Nationalist grave in Taipei? The answer reveals much about China’s violent relationship with its most western province.

One Fine Day: Britain’s Empire on the Brink by Matthew Parker and Imperial Island: A History of Empire in Modern Britain by Charlotte Lydia Riley are filled with ambition.