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Politics
Archibald Ramsay, British MP and Bigot
The history of England’s flirtation with fascism before World War 2 is a fascinating one. The philosophy of absolute authority had a great draw for an aristocratic upper-class who had seen their grip on authority gradually loosen over the…
Listening to the Ghosts | Tony Judt and Timothy Snyder’s Thinking the Twentieth Century
Some time before I left Ireland, I took a short holiday to Galway, the main town on the west coast. Walking along the Salthill Promenade, a scenic road that traces the northern shore of Galway Bay, I stumbled upon a nondescript, somewhat…
Count Johann von Bernstorff, Ambassador and Spymaster
Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff was born in London in 1862. His father Albrecht was a Prussian Count and experienced diplomat who had just spent seven years as the Prussian ambassador to Great Britain. Shortly before Johann’s birth he had…
William Randolph Hearst, the Original Media Mogul
William Randolph Hearst was born in San Francisco in 1863. His father George was a former Missouri farmer who had come to California for the gold rush, but had been smart enough to see the money to be made in quartz and silver mining as…
Wallis Simpson, the Woman Who Could Not Be Queen
Wallis Simpson was born as Bessie Wallis Warfield in June of 1896. Her parents had been married only seven months previously, undoubtedly due to her impending arrival, but Wallis always insisted that they had been married the previous June.…
The Other Washington Monument | Alice Roosevelt, Theodore’s Wild Child
Presidential daughters have always been scrutinised by the American press. Some have served as trusted advisors – we see Ivanka Trump in this role. Others have caused embarrassment – the Bush twins immediately come to mind. Cited for…
Baroness Moura Budberg, Russian Spy and Fantasist
Like most people involved in espionage, Moura Budberg was largely a creature of her own invention. She spent most of her life shrouded in lies, but she knew the trick to getting people to believe them. It wasn’t just “a kernel of truth”, as…
Blood on the Leaves |3| The Innovative Errors of Horst Herold
Previously: The Abduction of Hanns Martin Schleyer
It was March 1982 and West Germany had not experienced a single political assassination or high-profile kidnapping in almost four and a half years. Elizabeth Pond, a correspondent for…
Bad Science and Aryan Physics | Galileo, Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard
Have you heard the one about the bad scientists who called the good scientists’ science bad science? Like so many historical goings-on recorded since recording became a thing, it is just one more preposterous example of bringing ad hominem…
“As We Go Marching” | The Birth of International Women’s Day
‘The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist, nor to any one organization, but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights,’ – so says feminist campaigner and political activist, Gloria Steinem.…