Articles

Was Hitler a socialist? Setting the record straight

There is a persistent claim, often used for political effect, that Adolf Hitler was a socialist. This assertion is provocative by design, but it does not stand up to the fact-based historical record. …

Nakba Day: An unresolved wound

Each year on 15 May, Palestinians around the world pause to mark one of the most defining moments in their history — a day of mourning, remembrance, and renewed calls for justice. What Is Nakba …

The forgotten fire: A history of the Darfur Genocide

For more than two decades, the people of Darfur have endured mass murder, systematic rape, and the destruction of their homeland. It’s a catastrophe illustrating the world’s repeated failures to …

The rise and fall of the Japanese Empire

For a nation of islands, Japan has always had an uneasy relationship with its horizons. The same sea that protected it for centuries eventually became the highway for its soldiers, traders, and …

The fracturing of the international order in an age of impunity

How tenuous is peace? The honest answer is: considerably more tenuous than most people in the comfortable West assumed for most of the past several decades. The post-Cold War era generated an …

The role and limitations of international law in world affairs

What is international law? International law is, at its simplest, the body of rules and principles that governs relations between sovereign nations. It is not law in the way most people understand …

Mexican culture: A living mosaic of civilisations, faith, and tradition

More than sombreros and mariachi Mexican culture is one of the richest and most layered cultural identities in the world. Not a single tradition, but a fusion of ancient Indigenous civilisations, …

Did the UK have a Black civil rights movement?

Britain often tells its modern story as one of gradual tolerance, polite reform, and multicultural evolution. Compared to the dramatic confrontations of the American civil rights era, the UK’s …

Nicaragua: From colonisation to independence

Long before the Spanish arrived with their crosses and cannons, the land that would become Nicaragua was a tapestry of peoples, languages, and worlds that bore little resemblance to one another. The …

Who gets to be “American”? Geography, history, and the US claim to the name America

Geographically, the term America doesn’t refer to a single country. It refers to a vast landmass stretching from the Arctic Circle to the southern tip of Patagonia, which English speakers …

The colonisation of Chile: The long road to freedom

Few nations on Earth occupy as dramatic a geography as Chile. Stretched along the southwestern edge of South America like a ribbon of extremes. From the driest desert on the planet in the north to the …

The Mexican Revolution: Fire, land, and a nation remade

A country on the brink By the dawn of the twentieth century, Mexico had endured three decades under the iron hand of Porfirio Díaz. His regime, known as the Porfiriato, had modernised the country …