Arnhem is the sixth largest city in the Netherlands. It was the scene of fierce and remorseless fighting between 17 and 26 September, 1944, following the successful invasion…
Category: Asian History
Anticlericalism
Anti-clericalism is not the same as anti-Christian movements. Most Roman emperors tried to stamp out Christianity from the death of Christ under Tiberius until Constantine the Great decided…
The Ancien Régime: what was it and did it work?
Countless times as you read books and learned pamphlets on history, you will meet the French words Ancien Régime. It is an easy bet that many of us…
The White Rajah of Sarawak
In a recent article, I published a brief account of the rise and fall of the British empire. The empire was just as much a product of private…
Alexander the Great
All records of Alexander by his own contemporaries have disappeared. We have to depend, all of us, including historians, historical novelists, and teachers, on histories compiled three or…
Josef Stalin
Born in Georgia, his family name was actually Djugashvili, and his adopted middle name was Visarionovitch. This hero of the Soviet Union was a living reminder of the…
The British Empire
What we mean by this expression was (formerly) an apparently haphazard collection of lands throughout the world linked by common allegiance to the British throne. In 1800, though…
The orchestrated Suez Canal Affair (1956)
Suez is a ship canal joining the Mediterranean Sea (at Port Said) with the Red Sea (at the Gulf of Suez). It was built to provide a sea…
Imperialism
Called by some ‘colonialism’ – a mistake – imperialism is a term frequently abused by being used pejoratively by politicians and journalists. For historians, the word can be…
Wars in Russia and Japan, 1904 – 1921
It is often forgotten that these two vitally important countries, one massive in size, the other massive in resources and armed might, were in one way or the…