BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Albert Speer, Hitler’s armaments minister, escaped the gallows at Nuremberg by convincing the court he had known nothing of the Holocaust. It was in his 1971 BBC interview, where his evasions were most apparent. What does Speer’s later life reveal about the gap between public performance and private torment? Drawing on historical scholarship and the testimony of those closest to Speer, the … Continue reading The Architecture of a Lie
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN For more than two thousand years, two figures have stood at the opposite ends of the human imagination, and we have never been able to look at one without seeing the ghost of the other. Krishna of the Mahabharata, blue skinned and crowned with peacock feathers, who lifts a mountain on one finger and dances in the moonlight with milkmaids whose names … Continue reading Was Krishna Christ?
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The first thing you notice about Pune is that nothing has been erased. I don’t mean this in the sentimental sense—the sort of thing travel writers reach for when they want to make decay sound charming. I mean it literally. Walk from the Kasba Peth police station towards Shaniwar Wada and you pass through three centuries in about four hundred yards. The … Continue reading An Ode to Pune
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN Elon Musk, that modern titan of industry and provocation, recently declared that slavery was not a white invention by declaring the video below by Kaizen Asiedu to be true. Technically, he is correct—just as one might say fire was not invented by cavemen, merely harnessed by them. But such statements are a sleight of hand, a deflection from the true horror. Slavery … Continue reading Slavery and the Lies We Tell Ourselves
BY NIALL McCRAE & SLOBODAN ANTONIJEVIC High taxes levied to fund war, leading to hundreds of thousands of dead conscripts and a shattered economy: since the birth of nations, this pattern has repeated. Sometimes the ordinary people resist, through individual or collective tax avoidance. In the eighteenth century, as the British government waged costly wars with America and France, ruinous duties on imports and exports … Continue reading Did Sussex Smugglers Inspire the US Constitution?
BY PAUL T HORGAN Could use of the Tallboy have precipitated the end of World War II? Adolf Hitler moved in a mysterious way, but there was a good reason for the mystery. Of all the countries fighting in World War II, only Germany lacked capability for an orderly change of leadership to alter policy. Instead Germany was run by a form of personal rule. … Continue reading If
For centuries, the story of the Vikings in Britain has fascinated not only historians but the general public. A group known for their sea adventures and as warriors who conquered plenty of terrain outside their homelands, the Vikings were one of the great groups of settlers of their time, spreading their language, culture, and traditions as they went. Due to this, their legacy lives on, … Continue reading The Enduring Legacy of the Vikings in Britain
BY DANIEL JUPP As the Founding Fathers of the United States of America moved towards the Revolution of 1776, their thoughts dwelt of course on the recent causes of discontent that occurred during the reign of George III. They discussed the specific ‘intolerable burdens’ that were provoking them to rebellion (such things as a tax on tea), but it was a broader and deeper sense … Continue reading American Revolution By Englishmen
BY TOM GALLAGHER Portugal during 1974-5 did not lack single-minded zealots. These radicals, however, were seeking to transform society from a much weaker level of institutional influence. They lacked the means to shift popular consciousness in their direction as shown by the failure of a campaign of ‘cultural dynamization’ launched in parts of rural Portugal by junior officers who strove to liberate peasants from their … Continue reading Revolutionary Portugal & the Woke Anglosphere II
BY TOM GALLAGHER A new book whose English translation is ‘To the Right of the Revolution’, offering a detailed exploration of the resistance to the left-wing Portuguese revolution of 1974-75, prompts the question: why did it fail? It had a lot going for it. The overthrow of an enfeebled authoritarian regime on 25 April 1974 opened up a power vacuum. It was quickly filled by … Continue reading Revolutionary Portugal & the Woke Anglosphere I
BY PHIL DEEKS Two-hundred-and-fifteen years ago, Vice Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson sailed his fleet headlong towards the enemy, casting caution and centuries of naval convention to the wind. Leading from the front, his flagship, HMS Victory, bore the brunt of French and Spanish fire. British gunners unable to launch their broadsides until they were dense among the hostile cannon. Nelson knew his men and ships … Continue reading Nelson, Hero
Chava Boroda now lives in Los Angeles. However, her family was among thousands of people from the USSR, whose story of moving to the United States as political refugees is inspiring. Chava’s family was among those “Refuseniks” who proved to the world how willpower can triumph over even the strictest regime in the world. The world has slowly forgotten emotional and powerful stories of “Refuseniks”. … Continue reading Refusenik
BY BEN IRVINE (Following on from PART ONE) For Hitler, racism and nationalism were equivalent: ‘To us state and race are one’, he asserted. In other words, antisemitism was the link between the ‘National’ and the ‘Socialism’ parts of National Socialism. To Hitler, racist nationalism was racist socialism, and vice versa. Alas, this proved to be a powerful electoral combination. In the early 1930s, a … Continue reading Was Hitler a Socialist? II
BY BEN IRVINE ‘Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxists have stolen the term and confused its meaning… We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national.’ – Adolf Hitler Was Hitler a socialist? On the face of it, the answer is obvious: a resounding yes. From the start of his political career in … Continue reading Was Hitler a Socialist?
BY ANASTASIA CHOO The 140,000 Chinese farm labourers, who over a century ago volunteered to leave their remote villages and work for Britain and France in the first world war, have been called “the forgotten of the forgotten”. Over the past decade, the story of China’s human contribution to the Great War has received some of the attention it has long been denied. These peasant … Continue reading Great War Chinese Labourers Forgotten
CSM EDITORIAL Brexiteers have no monopoly on Britishness. On paper Brexiteers are as British as Continuity Remain – they simply lack the same sense of loyalty to the EU that continuity remainers claim to have. The “Britishness” battle that goes on every day on social media is a dumb one – one that is best avoided in the interests of people just getting on. Similarly, … Continue reading Please, No Poppy Fights in 2019
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN What on earth is all this preposterous recent denigration of Winston Churchill, who died on this day in 1965? The release of the film Darkest Hour starring Gary Oldman (excellent by the way) has once again made Churchill ubiquitous across our media. It has been many years since audiences have given spontaneous standing ovations to a film. Fans of the film have … Continue reading History Written by Victors, Losers
BY MANDY BALDWIN The soldier made of Flanders mud, placed in Trafalgar Square to commemorate Passchendaele is, in my opinion, the most poignant work of war-art ever made. Watch him melt, destroyed by the weather of another wet summer, and to understand the 3rd Battle of Ypres, you hardly need Siegfried Sassoon’s chilling words: “I died in Hell. They called it Passchendaele.” The First World … Continue reading Passchendaele Lessons Unheeded
Since 1980 Michael Turner has travelled the world in Sir Francis Drake’s wake and footsteps, recording on slide film virtually all Drake’s movements. Michael’s journeys have resulted in the discovery and verification of Drake’s previously unidentified anchorages and places ashore. Michael’s research forms the first ever pictorial, topographical biography of one of History’s greatest seafarers. Michael has travelled to Panama in search of Drake’s coffin … Continue reading In Drake’s Wake
