Illustrating Spymaster by Helen Fry: A Q&A with Rui Ricardo
Thomas Kendrick (1881–1972) was central to the British Secret Service from its beginnings through to the Second World War. Under the guise of “British Passport…
WWII
Bruno Lohse, Nazi art plunderer – An extract from Goering’s Man in Paris
Jonathan Petropoulos— I remember clearly my first meeting with Bruno Lohse in June 1998 at the Zentralinstitut in Munich. It was a hot summer…
The MI9 competition: How to decipher a letter encrypted with MI9 code
Try your hand at deciphering this MI9-inspired coded letter for a chance to win Helen Fry’s books on intelligence history including her latest bestseller,…
The men behind MI9’s Q-gadgets: Christopher Clayton Hutton and Charles Fraser Smith
MI9’s ‘Q-gadgets’ have made it into the public imagination through the adventures of James Bond. But who was behind their invention? Helen Fry reveals…
A Schoolmaster’s War – an extract from Harry Rée’s wartime diaries
Escape Into Art, Look Through the Lens of History, Seek Certainty in Science … To help us all keep on reading over the coming…
Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist
In autumn 1933, Albert Einstein found himself living alone in an isolated holiday hut in rural England. There, he toiled peacefully at mathematics while…
Bletchley Park and D-Day: A Q&A with David Kenyon
Since the secret of Bletchley Park was revealed in the 1970s, the work of its codebreakers has become one of the most famous stories…
Nazi Germany and Modernist art
Culture was integral to the smooth running of the Third Reich. During the war, the arts were closely tied to the Nazi propaganda machine…
The Kremlin Letters: David Reynolds on the correspondence of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin
For nearly four years, and against all the odds, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Josef Stalin led the most effective alliance in history. Yet…
The Last Days of Stalin: An Extract
‘Genghis Khan with a telephone.’ On 5 March 2023 it will be 70 years since the death of Joseph Stalin, the man who was…
The Battle of Britain: The Battle Won
‘How did the British achieve this victory? Statistics can often illustrate the decline of one side as against the other. Here the statistics tell…
VE Day Anniversary: A WW2 Round-Up
Friday 8 May is the 70th anniversary of VE Day, the date that marked the end of the Second World War in Europe. To…
Those Who Hold Bastogne: To the Rescue
Our final extract from Those Who Hold Bastogne, Peter Schrijvers’ dramatic account of the 1944-5 winter of war, rejoins the fight as General Patton…
Those Who Hold Bastogne: Nuts!
The second of our series of extracts from Those Who Hold Bastogne focuses on the most well-known anecdote of the siege: General McAuliffe’s one…
Those Who Hold Bastogne: Locking Shields
The Battle of the Bulge was Hitler’s last gamble, intended to force the Allies to negotiate a peace treaty by punching a hole in…
- 1
- 2