Political

David Birmingham reviews the historical dimensions of international definitions of human rights

'A painful lesson in international politics' - Anglo-Australian relations in the Second World War revealed the rhetoric of Empire not matched by a British commitment to Australia's defence.

The first, uneasy, relationships between Europeans and Aborigines soon began to turn into outright hostilities, despite the well-meaning efforts of several Europeans.

Kevin Sharpe reassesses the role that ideology, rhetoric and intellectual discussion played in the upheavals of seventeenth-century England.

Scapegoat or quisling extraordinaire? Douglas Johnson probes the motives and actions of Vichy's chief minister to find insularity and gamesmanship his fatal flaws.

'Revisionism' has now become a historian's catch-phrase. Long-cherished interpretations of upheavals in British and European history have been re-examined. In this light, Glyn Redworth examines revisionist interpretations of the English Reformation.

Fresh air, sexual liberation, manual work and socialism was the heady brew offered by the leading exponent of anti-Establishment attitudes at the end of the Victorian era.

The Xi'an Incident, a tragi-comic sequence of mutiny and kidnapping, marked a crucial stage in the struggle between Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and Mao Zedong’s Communists.

'Stirring up divine discontent' by education to effect a transformation of the social order became the credo of one of Victorian Christian Socialism's most colourful characters, far outpacing the more temperate aims of its founders.