History
What’s that I hear? Francis Fukuyama back-pedalling frantically
The problem with a futuristic thesis — particularly when summarised by a futuristic title — is that it is likely…
Is America headed for tyranny? It is when the other side's in charge...
For the last 50 years Americans have been decrying the increase of presidential power whenever the party they oppose is…
Hitler’s Valkyrie: Unity Mitford at 100
Unity Mitford at 100
How Napoleon won at Waterloo
If you visit Waterloo today, there’s no question which general comes out on top
Thug, rapist, poetic visionary: the contradictory Earl of Rochester
Philip Hensher on the scandalous 17th-century courtier whose hellfire reputation has overshadowed his fine satirical poetry
The bits of Magna Carta that David Cameron won’t want taught in schools
The not-so-great charter David Cameron wants every child to be taught about Magna Carta. Some bits he might want to…
The starchy, conservative lawyer who freed every slave in England
Slavery was ended in England not through blood and glory, but by the common law
Paul Johnson’s diary: Boris would make a great PM – but he must strike now
I feel an intense antipathy for Vladimir Putin. No one on the international scene has aroused in me such dislike…
Meeting George Osborne at Waterloo
The defence of Hougoumont is one of the great British feats of arms. If the farmhouse had fallen to Bonaparte’s…
Did most women want the vote?
The suffragettes’ opponents deserve to be remembered sympathetically
Churchill was as mad as a badger. We should all be thankful
The egotistical Churchill may have viewed the second world war as pure theatre, but that was exactly what was needed at the time, says Sam Leith
Sudan was always an invented country. Maybe we should invent it again
Sudan — a country that ceased to exist in 2011 — is or was one of the last untouristed wildernesses…
We have to tell the truth about Tony Benn now. Who will hear it later?
I could start by remarking that we should not speak ill of the dead, quoting the pertinent Latin phrase: de…
Do wars always start in years ending ‘14’?
Years of war Imaginative souls have tried to compared the situation in Ukraine with that which preceded the first world…
When a survivor of Auschwitz asks for your story, what do you say?
What do you feel when a survivor of Auschwitz tells you their story?
Kim Philby got away with it because he was posh
Kim Philby’s treachery escaped detection for so long through the stupidity and snobbery of the old-boy network surrounding him, says Philip Hensher
Niall Ferguson’s diary: Brazil is overtaking us – but it no longer feels like that
São Paolo It was back in 2001 that my good friend Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs coined the acronym ‘Bric’,…
A secret from my African childhood has become a deeper mystery
About 55 years ago, when I was about ten, my younger brother Roger and I discovered a slave pit in…
When Scotland goes, will England return?
Who, my husband asked, expects every man will do his duty? He was responding to the interesting and important question…
How the first world war inspired the EU
To understand the real meaning of the EU, you must grasp that it originated in the first world war, rather than the second
America's war on sleep
The relentless rise of ‘you snooze, you lose’
The two people who brought us The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck (1902–1968), an ardent propagandist for the exploited underdogs of the Great Depression, had barely enough money for subsistence…
The Spectator book review that brought down Macmillan's government
Did Macmillan stitch up his succession – or did Iain Macleod’s famous Spectator piece, 50 years old this week, stitch up Macmillan?
Harry Shearer on bringing out Richard Nixon’s feminine side
Simpsons star Harry Shearer on what it takes to play the president
William Astor: My father, his swimming pool and the Profumo scandal
I was ten when the Profumo affair began at my home, Cliveden. Andrew Lloyd Webber has captured some of the story – but not all
