Political

Thomas Gretton presents a special review of the impact of the 19th century French satirical artist.

In the month that the population of Britain will be counted for the eighteenth time, Sydney D Bailey argues that census taking, 'molesting and perplexing every single member of the kingdom... for the sake of political arithmetic' has always been a sensitive subject, reflecting the social concerns of the age.

In the mid-seventeenth century Spain was at the apogee of artistic and cultural achievement under the patronage of her monarch, Philip IV - but, as R.A. Stradling shows here, she was fighting for survival as a great imperial power.

Robert Stephens looks at how Nasser left his mark on nearly twenty years of Egyptian, Arab and world history. An anti-colonialist who extended his concern to the newly liberated countries of the Third World, he has been acclaimed as a nationalist liberator - and condemned as a warmonger.

The career of Colonel Fernando Santos Costa explodes the myth of Salazar's Portugal as a politically stable country with 'no history'. In charge of Portugal's army for twenty-two years, Santos Costa played a powerful and often unscrupulous role within this dictatorship.

The invasion of Poland by Tsar Alexis of Russia in May, 1654, marked the emergence of his country as a major European power. As Philip Longworth argues here, it was also to inaugurate, albeit indirectly, a decisive stage in the Westernisation of Russia.

Japan had two great infatuations with the West: in the 1870s and during the American occupation of 1945-52. Forsaking traditional isolationism, Japan welcomed Western ideas and customs with open arms, and according to Jean-Pierre Lehmann, what resulted was not an ersatz Western culture but one that retained a distinct national identity

Dixon Hoste attempts to locate a common element between Marxism and traditional Chinese ideas.

Charles Seltman traces the idea of the ruler not only great but good—helper and protector of his subjects—back to Alexander of Macedon.

A study of the dangers and difficulties that confronted the young Queen in 1558, and of the courageous strategy by which she overcame them. By J.E. Neale.