Political

Martin Daunton argues that Labour's commitment to public ownership owed little to socialism and more to circumstances at the end of the First World War.

Omer Bartov asks how the armies of lords and kings became the forces of peoples and nations.

T.C.W. Blanning argues that royalty in France undermined itself through mismanagement, despotism and sleaze.

Gerard de Groot argues that exploitation of silent majority fears about 60s student protest is the key to understanding Ronald Reagan's rise to prominence in Californian politics.

Andrew Boyd offers a bicentennial analysis of a key element in the culture of Protestant Ulster.

Alonzo Hamby considers Harry Truman's First World War experiences and explores the dilemmas that influenced his decision to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Alan Steinweis considers how a Victorian historian's hero-worship became entangled with the propaganda visions of the Nazis a century later.

In the first of our contributions from the Russian magazine Rodina, Sergei Kudryashov charts the twists and turns of the Soviet leader's tricksy diplomacy with his Western comrades-in-arms and its impact on the war effort.