Political

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.

Graham Seel reassesses the career of Oliver Cromwell's predecessor as Parliamentary Commander in the 1640s, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and argues that he has been harshly judged by English Civil War historians.

David Abulafia reassesses the life and motives of a notorious ruler and the complex web of Renaissance diplomacy involving him which led up to the Italian wars.

The way in which the church commemoration of King Charles I's 1649 execution became a potent instrument in the political war of words after the Restoration is examined, and the history of the king's execution and the clergy's promotion of the event are discussed.

Elizabeth Marvick highlights the similarities of allegation and opposition to two embattled American presidents - Thomas Jefferson and Bill Clinton.

Has our image of Henry VIII's elder daughter as 'Bloody Mary', burning Protestants and unhappily married to Philip of Spain, clouded our assessment of how close she came to restoring the old religion? 

Glenn Richardson profiles the French king's relationship with Henry VIII and the cultural PR and diplomacy that went with it.

Richard Shone looks at the foray into portraiture of a leading British artist and reflects on the tensions of painter-patron relations in the cultural climate of 1930s Britain.