Lessons from The World of Yesterday
Stefan Zweig’s 1942 portrait of the late Austro-Hungarian empire remains a stark warning against taking national security for granted.
ByHistory books
Discover all the New Statesman’s latest articles and reviews of history books. Here you can find expert opinion on the best reads for 2022.
Ripping up the Iron Curtain
How a mass picnic party broke open Hungary’s Austrian border and foreshadowed the fall of the Berlin Wall.
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The dictator’s best friend
From Mussolini to Mao, autocrats have often turned to writers to tighten their grip on power.
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Empire’s final reckoning
Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireworld captures the complexity of British imperialism’s legacy – but can its injustices yet be undone?
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The Polish Revolution
Timothy Garton Ash’s account of the Solidarity movement shows how Poland has resisted Russian control, and led me to a…
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József Debreczeni’s letter from the land of the dead
A rediscovered memoir from an Auschwitz survivor offers powerful lessons for our own reckonings with the Holocaust.
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The new age of magical thinking
The philosophy of magic inspired the founders of modern science. Now it feeds the delusions of Silicon Valley.
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JGA Pocock: an ancient among the moderns
How the historian’s historian transformed the study of the past.
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What it means to be German
Frank Trentmann’s history reveals how modern Germany found a new moral purpose after the horrors of Nazism.
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The white heat of politics
Thirteen years of Tory rule, a season of scandal and Labour on the rise – the hectic Britain of 1963…
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Why we go to war
Two new studies of the evolution of warfare reveal the fragility of peace in a world ruled by irrational actors.
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The battle for China’s history
Xi Jinping controls the story of his country’s past to crush dissent. But historians are fighting to keep the truth…
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The bones that built Britain
Winchester Cathedral’s mysterious “bone chests” tell a story of how warring kings and queens forged a new nation.
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Anne Boleyn’s blunders
A new history shows how the clever, ambitious queen was no match for the post-truth politics of Henry VIII’s court.
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Myths of the miners’ strike
An oral history of the bitter Eighties dispute reveals a conflict that went far deeper than just government vs trade…
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Requiem for a world war
Jeremy Eichler’s Time’s Echo shows how four great 20th-century composers captured the horrors of conflict.
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How England lost the Hundred Years War
The final part of Jonathan Sumption’s epic history reveals the complacency that led to the end of English power in…
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From Duncan Hamilton to Lydia Kiesling: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring The Story of Scandinavia by Stein Ringen and Big Meg by Tim and Emma Flannery.
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The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers redux
The 20th century’s most influential history book foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union and rise of China. Thirty-five years…
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Who makes history?
A study of postwar British politics overstates the influence of its leading personalities.
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