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Russel Tarr compares and contrasts the rise to power of two Communist leaders.

In listening to the war’s loudest voices, Crimean Quagmire: Tolstoy, Russell and the Birth of Modern Warfare by Gregory Carleton drowns out the dive

Russell Tarr explains how the Bolsheviks established their grip on Russia after the 1917 Revolution, and at what cost.

Reforms to divorce law inevitably prompt moral panic as they did in Victorian England.

When England’s search for a Northwest Passage via sea failed, an audacious plan to forge a land route was hatched by the Muscovy Company.

Brutality, corruption and abuses of power in the Metropolitan Police at the turn of the 20th century led to an inquiry – but no reform.

Michael Foot celebrates the anniversary of the London Library with a tribute to its founder, Thomas Carlyle.

The aim of Charles I’s foreign policy was to restore his nephew’s lands in the Rhineland. France, he thought, was the key to success. 

The House of Lords, often in the shadow of the Commons, asserted its power during the reigns of James I and his son, Charles I.

The trial of Captain William Kidd raised uncomfortable questions for the state about the pirate’s role in the consolidation of England’s early overseas empir