Crucial contributions

Writing about nuclear war is difficult because it is easy. J Robert Oppenheimer himself, the so-called father of the atomic bomb, set the tone with his paraphrasing of the Bhagavad Gita after the Trin

Did you know that Thomas Müntzer, leader of the German Peasants’ War in 1525, used a rainbow flag to rally his followers? It’s an aptly exuberant image for the radical charisma of Müntzer, and for the

Glasgow, 1942. The Carl Rosa Opera Company was in town to perform Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. Tickets had been snapped up by local people – including many who didn’t really know what an opera was. The

Our pick of the latest military history books

The first five pages of my new novel, Small Acts of Resistance, a love story set during the First World War, have taken a somewhat circuitous route to print. Their journey into being started over twen

Leading historians share their thoughts on what book or film you should delve into next