Kamila Shamsie’s Best of Friends reveals the complexities of female relationships
The author’s portrait of two women growing up in 1980s Karachi exposes the contempt that can often lie beneath love.
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Lucy Hughes-Hallett
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Fear, shame, guilt, suicide: ordinary Germans at the end of the Second World War
The German people were seduced by Hitler’s message of glorious blood sacrifice – right up until it needed to…
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How the appeasement of Hitler played into his hands
The word “appeasement” smells a bit off nowadays. There’s a tang of cowardice about it, a whiff of turpitude.…
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From Bismarck to Hitler, how German rulers rewrote history
Christopher Clark’s new book explores how Germany’s leaders learnt to bend the past to suit the present. Today’s politics…
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When writers revolt
The events behind the short-lived writers’ revolution in Germany in 1918.
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How Winston Churchill used his storytelling skills to shape his country’s history
Fake news, disinformation, propaganda – call it what you will – the dissemination of untruths and half-truths is part of…
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Matrons and murderers: the blood-thirsty women of Rome
The women of Rome’s imperial family matched the men for ruthlessness, but their reward was ingratitude rather than power.
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John Law: the 18th-century Scot who became richer than the king of France
The remarkable story of how John Law transformed the French economy after establishing a national bank.
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Why dictators find the lure of writing books irresistible
Daniel Kalder investigates why dictators have aspired to be, as Stalin put it, “engineers of souls”, and – in pursuit of…
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