essayNations and empires
The rewards of ruin
Societal downfalls loom large in history and popular culture but, for the 99 per cent, collapse often had its upsides
Luke Kemp
essayReligion
An unholy alliance
In the 1930s, the rise of Nazism brought centuries of animosity between Europe’s Catholics and Protestants to an end. Why?
Udi Greenberg
videoValues and beliefs
Why a single tree, uprooted in a typhoon, means so much to one man in Hanoi
7 minutes
essayDeath
The last letter
Condemned to death by firing squad, French resistance fighters put pen to paper. Their dying words can teach us how to live
Daniel R Brunstetter
essayNations and empires
Shame and revolution
Vietnam’s potent and storied anticolonialism is founded upon a unique sense of national shame
Kevin D Pham
videoWar and peace
Two Ukrainian boys’ summer unfolds just miles from the frontlines
22 minutes
essayWar and peace
Could conquest return?
It’s only a century since US diplomats first persuaded the world that it’s wrong for countries to annex their neighbours
Kerry Goettlich
videoFairness and equality
‘To my old master’ – a freed slave answers the request to return to his old plantation
7 minutes
essayNations and empires
Passion and Palestine
More than any other conflict, Israel/Palestine has provoked extraordinarily fervent emotion throughout the world. Why?
Derek Jonathan Penslar
videoFamily life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
videoWar and peace
A frontline soldier’s moving account of the fabled ‘Christmas truce’ of 1914
12 minutes
essayPolitical philosophy
The underground university
During the Cold War, Oxford philosophers worked together to aid dissidents behind the Iron Curtain. I was one of them
Cheryl Misak
videoThe ancient world
Petty squabbles and bloody battles – the life of an ancient Roman soldier
18 minutes
videoWar and peace
‘She is living on in many hearts’ – Otto Frank on the legacy of his daughter’s diary
12 minutes
videoChildhood and adolescence
Marmar is living through a devastating war – but she’d rather tell you about her new dress
8 minutes
videoHuman rights and justice
An unarmed Indigenous group aims to protect their native lands in this stirring portrait
15 minutes
videoArt
A prisoner in Guantánamo finds some escape in building intricate model ships
6 minutes
videoWar and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes
videoWar and peace
A century later, can poetry help us make sense of the First World War’s horrors?
9 minutes
videoBiography and memoir
Preserving memories of a Japanese internment camp, and the land where it stood
8 minutes
essayNations and empires
Chastising little brother
Why did Japanese Confucians enthusiastically support Imperial Japan’s murderous conquest of China, the homeland of Confucius?
Shaun O’Dwyer
essayStories and literature
On Jewish revenge
What might a people, subjected to unspeakable historical suffering, think about the ethics of vengeance once in power?
Shachar Pinsker
videoPolitics and government
How it looked to Afghan women to see the Taliban return to power
33 minutes
essayHistory of technology
Why America fell for guns
The US today has extraordinary levels of gun ownership. But to see this as a venerable tradition is to misread history
Megan Kang