Political

Showdown at the Rouge

Solidarity forever? Not by 1951, Robert Zieger argues, when the visit of one of American labour's great heroes to a celebratory rally at a Ford Motors complex near Detroit revealed just how deep the split between old- and new-style unionism had become.

Harry Truman, Small-Town American

'Am I just a crook to compromise in order to get the job done? You judge it, I can't'. Alonzo Hamby traces the web of influences from his boyhood in a Mid-West town that shaped the character of America's 33rd president.

Byzantium: The Emperor's New Clothes?

Alexander Kazhdan considers the influence of totalitarianism and meritocracy in the Byzantine empire – and its relationship to the growth of the Russian and other successor states in the East.

Power and Politics in Early Modern Italy

A country divided, degenerate and in cultural decline? Robert Oresko examines the changing views historians are developing of Italy between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries and finds a society far more vibrant and complex than tradition suggests.

The Abortive Crusade

To export the Revolution's benefits across Europe was the early hope of the French - but the unenthusiastic response from the liberated peoples rapidly soured the vision. Tim Blanning chronicles that descent from optimism to realpolitik.