Sound and fury
Russian musician Mstislav Rostropovich conducts in London, 1988. Two decades earlier his decision to play Czech composer Antonín DvoÅ™ák's Cello Concerto at the Proms expressed his anger at the Soviet invasion that crushed the 1968 Prague Spring
The War of Nerves: Inside the Cold War Mind by Martin Sixsmith Profile, 592 pages, £25
With this impressively ambitious and wide-ranging study, Martin Sixsmith former BBC correspondent in Moscow and author of such works as Philomena and Russia: A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East - adds a fascinating chapter to Cold War scholarship.
Sixsmith does a good job of presenting the essential narrative of the Cold War. He covers its post-Second World War inception in the Truman-Stalin years, as well as other key events including the Cuban missile crisis the 1962 military standoff that brought the US and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear conflict - and the Vietnam War. The improvement in relations between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s is also explored, as well as the ending of the Cold War with the collapse of the Soviet empire in eastern Europe and the fall of the Soviet Union itself in 1991.
Rather than provide a traditional diplomatic history of the Cold War years, though, Sixsmith develops a thematically rich and diverse work that explores, in particular, the psychological dimension of the Soviet-American contest.
The author delves into many instances of the psychological aspect of the conflict. For example, he discusses the work of Freud when considering how individuals replaced a sense of self with loyalty to an authoritarian leader such as Stalin. And he examines in detail the use of psychological warfare by the CIA, established by Harry Truman in 1947.
Denne historien er fra January 2022-utgaven av BBC History Magazine.
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Denne historien er fra January 2022-utgaven av BBC History Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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The Long Road Back - The Election Was Tough for the Conservatives but the Past Holds Clues on How Parties Can Return From the Brink
It’s election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson. “You’re the chairman of a fertiliser firm,” the famously pugnacious broadcaster asked Parkinson. “How deep is the mess you’re in?” Twenty-seven years later, as the Conservative party comes to terms with another landslide defeat, it’s worth applying the same question to the present day. How does this result compare with previous devastating losses – not only those suffered by the Tories themselves, but also those experienced by the other major parties? And what can history teach us about the tools that politicians use to dig themselves out of the dung heap and set themselves back on the road to power?
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What a summer it’s been so far, with an astonishing election result. There has been much talk of national renewal, and in due course we’ll see what that means. But it felt like a watershed. The new prime minister’s dad was a toolmaker, his mum a nurse; the cabinet is majority comprehensive-educated, with more alumni of Parrs Wood High School than of Eton. Among commentators – not just on the left – there’s been a growing feeling that 14 years of Tory rule, compounded by Brexit, have undermined what the great medieval historian Ibn Khaldun called asabiyyah: group feeling – the glue that makes societies work. And watching TV on election night, I found myself wondering whether, like sediment settling in a glass, the time has finally arrived for a new national narrative
Parthian Chicken - Eleanor Barnett recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
According to ancient Roman natural philosopher Pliny the Elder, Apicius was “the most gluttonous gorger of all spendthrifts”. The cookbook attributed to him, known simply as Apicius or as De Re Coquinaria (On the Art of Cooking), is one of the oldest collections of recipes surviving from antiquity. Its author may have been Marcus Gavius Apicius, a Roman gourmet of the first century AD who reputedly travelled all the way from Campania to Libya on the hunt for the largest, juiciest prawns.
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Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
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Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies weren’t in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well – always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadn’t moved for weeks.
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From Magna Carta to parliament, taxation to the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for the modern British state
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Æthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?
