Log in below to preview the introductory film - available to all registered users of the website. This open access introductory film forms part of our ongoing film series on Power and authority in Russia and the Soviet Union. All the films are available through the Student Zone with corporate secondary...

Luke Rimmo Loyi Lego explores the role of women in the French Revolution, and how their challenges to traditional gender roles laid the foundations for the modern feminist movement.  The study of the French Revolution is often restricted to its impact on the Enlightenment ideas of influential men such as Rousseau,...

Professor Jan Rüger joined the Virtual Branch on 9th February 2023 to talk about his book Heligoland: Britain, Germany, and the Struggle for the North Sea, tracing a rich history of contact and conflict from the Napoleonic Wars to the Cold War. For generations this North Sea island expressed a German...

Philip Woods discusses Evelyn Waugh’s contribution to understanding the nature of journalism before the Second World War. This article compares the value to historians of the two books Evelyn Waugh wrote based on his experiences as a war correspondent covering the Italo-Ethiopian war of 1935–36. The popular satiric novel Scoop (1938) is...

David Shipp analyses the state of socialism in the Soviet Union, from Brezhnev to Chernenko. ‘What is he thinking of? Reform, reform. Who needs it, and who can understand it? We need to work better, that is the only problem.’ These reported words of Leonid Brezhnev epitomise the view of the period...

Log in below to preview the introductory film - available to all registered users of the website. This open access introductory film forms part of our NEW nine-part filmed series on the development of power and authority in Germany 1871-1991 available through the Student Zone with corporate secondary membership.  In this...

Military history enthusiast David Wilson writes about why the Berlin Wall is still such an important symbol and reminder. I first visited Berlin in the mid 1980s when I was stationed in Germany as part of the British Army. It was an interesting place to go because until then the Cold...

Fairy tale princesses and mysterious castles are just part of the way that historically story tellers have been connected to royalty. In this article some of the most famous story tellers are discussed with their royal patronage and experiences. Hans Christian Andersen couldn’t believe his luck. In 1854, he was...

This article examines the aftermath of three epoch-making periods of change – the English, American, and French Revolutions. A comparison of the trio of military commanders who gained power as a direct consequence of these upheavals reveals how the very political radicalism which brought them to power also threatened to...

This article examines the conditions under which Sweden considered and subsequently pursued nuclear weapons. After failing to secure the establishment of a Scandinavian defence union, the Swedish government initially viewed nuclear arms as an effective means to safeguard the country’s neutrality. Owing to technical limitations, reassessments on the value of such...

People are sometimes surprised to learn that for much of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, Sweden was one of Europe’s great powers. The revolution that transformed Swedish government following the death of Karl XII at the end of the Great Northern War is still less widely-known. But though largely carried...

In the lead-up to the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, Dr Bob Morris joined the HA Virtual Branch in March 2022 to consider why the monarchy has survived in Europe.  Dr R. M. (Bob) Morris is a Senior Honorary Research Associate at the Constitution Unit, University College London. He was formerly a...

Catherine Lloyd introduces us to an international heritage initiative to celebrate ‘spa’ culture. From ancient times, people believed that gods and spirits brought the means of natural healing. Step back in time to imagine an eerie wilderness, a glade in a wood, or a pool by a river, where the snow...

This year's Holocaust Memorial Day the theme is 'One Day'. In this webinar with historian Paula Kitching, we will use the one day Wannsee Conference of January 1942 to help explore the actions of the perpetrators, the Holocaust victims and how decision making by people can lead to genocide. This...

Karin Friedrich recently joined the Virtual Branch to discuss aspects of its complex history in her talk on the partitions of Poland, their repercussions for German-Polish relations and their legacy. Professor Friedrich is chair in Early Modern European History at the University of Aberdeen, co-director of the Centre for Early Modern...

In the year of its 150th anniversary, Jason Jacques Willems offers his thoughts on the importance of centrist opinion to our understanding of the Paris Commune. 2021 is the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune, when a revolutionary Parisian movement was pitted against the French government. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870...

Robert Pike joined the HA Virtual Branch to discuss the research for his latest book Silent Village: Life and Death in Occupied France. This work explores life in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane before, during and after the infamous massacre and destruction by Nazi Germany that took place on 10 June...

Katya Hoyer recently gave a lecture for the HA Virtual Branch on Weltkrieg: the German home front during the First World War and the devastating effects of total war on a divided and insecure society. This talk provides an insight into the First World War that is often overlooked, reminding us that...