Is this the age of dictators?” asked veteran journalist Sir Sidney Low. He was writing in September 1923, the month in which a military coup brought Miguel Primo de Rivera to power in Spain. At the sa

In the early 1940s, the Royal Mint replaced the familiar image of a portcullis on the threepenny coin with a thrift plant. This was part of the government’s campaign reminding the public of the need f

“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci’s words, written in prison near Bari almost 100 years ago, ring out to us now. The politi

In spring 1953, Britain was looking forward. After the trauma of the war and its aftermath, people were no longer focused simply on surviving. Thanks in part to the postwar settlement and welfare stat

Joan Carter’s most memorable war stories centred on her time working in the NAAFI canteens. Her favourite involved her supervisor, who had taken a serious dislike to her, ordering her to shine the flo

The Board of Peace Controversy of the week ...