The Communist Manifesto
Roger Spalding introduces one of the most important publications in modern world history.
Economic History
Teachers Rule OK
Richard Willis describes the long struggle to get teachers their own professional organisation.
400 years of the East India Company
Huw V. Bowen asks whether the East India Company was one of the ‘most powerful engines’ of state and empire in British history.
Two Centuries of European Integration
Sean McGlynn puts the present-day European Union into historical perspective.
Ghana's Slave Castles
Ghana's slaving past, long regarded as too sensitive to even discuss, is now becoming a lively issue. A group of Ghanaians, led by lawyers and tribal chiefs, have convened an Africa-wide meeting to seek 'retribution and compensation for the crime of slavery’.
The Italian Roots of the Lottery
Adrian Seville describes the humble beginnings of the earliest lottery, tracing its development from 16th-century Venice across the Channel to Britain.
The Nazi Economy - Was it Geared to War?
Controversy has raged about Hitler's military and economic preparations for war. Did he intend a world war or a series of short conflicts? Richard Overy argues that Hitler drew the lesson from 1914-18 not that a major war should be avoided but that Germany should prepare more systematically so that, this time, she would win.
Traders and Soldiers in Russian America
Before 1867, Alaska was a Russian fur-trading colony, its values and laws derived from Moscow and, in part, from the European Enlightenment. Ernest Sipes looks at the relations between the colonists and the native peoples.
The Empire Behind the Lines
Michael Broers explores the measures and restrictions imposed by Napoleon on his many subjects and how, within the boundaries of the Empire, they responded to his rule.
EMU: The First Time Around
Martin Dedman recalls the background to European Monetary Union.