Churchill
Were the Arctic convoy sacrifices worth it?
Stalin privately admitted that his army could never have triumphed without western aid, and the convoys also indirectly helped the war in the Atlantic – but the loss of life was horrendous
China’s role in Soviet policy-making
Stalin and his successors’ struggle with the US and China reflected conflicting Soviet ambitions to be a superpower and to lead world revolution, says Sergey Radchenko
Fighting every inch of the way: the Italian Campaign of 1943
When Allied forces landed at Salerno on 9 September, they expected an easy run to Rome. But the intelligence proved dangerously faulty, as James Holland explains
Are Brits losing sympathy for Ukraine?
Britons were keen to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. A month into the war, more than half thought we hadn’t gone far enough.…
Robert Harris on Boris Johnson, cancel culture and rehabilitating Chamberlain
Nigel Jones talks to the writer Robert Harris about Blair, Johnson and Polanski, cancel culture and his quest to rehabilitate Neville Chamberlain
Can the fiasco of the Dieppe Raid really be excused?
In my mother’s final days we had a long conversation about the second world war. I asked if she’d ever…
Churchill as villain – but is this a character assassination too far?
Revisionist biographies of Churchill are nothing new but this one lays the hostility and contempt on with a trowel, says Andrew Roberts
The campus Churchill delusion
Was Winston Churchill a racist? For students like me who attended Churchill College, Cambridge, it’s a question which barely even…
Why great speeches are made for stage and screen
Curious thing, writer’s block. If you believe it exists. Terry Pratchett didn’t. ‘There’s no such thing,’ he said. ‘It was…
Why face masks weren’t compulsory during WW2
Britain has been here before when it comes to furores about face masks. Exactly 80 years ago the same argument…
Brexit means Boris
A few months before he died in 2007, the famous journalist Bill Deedes asked if I would come to see…
Helen Parr’s intimate portrait of the Parachute Regiment – Our Boys – captures the essence of modern Britain
On the night of 13 June 1982, Dave Parr was hit by shellfire on Wireless Ridge. He was 19, a…
Turns out life’s not so easy – just look at Ulysses S. Grant
When Winston Churchill was at the nadir of his career, he wrote a biography of his ancestor, the Duke of…
Why I won’t see The Darkest Hour
The BBC programme The Coronation, on Sunday evening, was extremely interesting, principally, of course, because of the Queen’s appearance on…
Why has there never been a hit musical about the history of Britain?
Americans may be able to draw on only 250 years of history, but they’re not shy of making a song…
James Klugmann and Guy Burgess: the wasted lives of spies
Geoff Andrews’s ‘Shadow Man’, James Klugmann, was the talent-spotter, recruiter and mentor of the Cambridge spy ring. From 1962, aged…
The second world war — according to Stalin’s ambassador to London
Ivan Maisky was the Russian ambassador in London from 1932 to 1943, and his knowledge of London, and affection for…
John Freeman: polymath or psychopath?
They don’t make Englishmen like the aptly named John Freeman any more. When he died last Christmas just shy of…
Heroically unoriginal: Channel 4’s Humans reviewed
You’d think scientists might have realised by now that creating a race of super-robots is about as wise as opening…
The subject of immigration has become a means of entrapment
When I founded the American Conservative 13 years ago — the purpose being to shine a light on the neocon…
The other trenches: the Dardanelles, 100 years on
Peter Parker discerns classical allusion amid the horror in two books commemorating the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign
Could it be that Wolf Hall is actually the teeniest bit dull?
In January 1958, the British government began working on the significantly titled Operation Hope Not: its plans for what to…
This diary of a prime minister's wife offers a front-row seat to the Great War
When Margot Asquith’s name crops up these days, it is usually in a retelling of the story about her meeting…
Robert Harris’s diary: My accidental war with Tony Blair
To Paris, for the launch of the French edition of my novel about the Dreyfus affair. As we land, I…
Spectator letters: On wind turbines, Churchill's only exam success, and the red-trousered mayor of Bristol
When the wind blows Sir: Clare Oxford’s piece (‘Gone with the wind turbines’, 12 April) is both timely and sad.…
