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SubscriptionsCategory: History
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Irony: The Velvet Glove of Colonialism?
Did the Greeks invent irony? Rahila Gupta makes the case for Britain’s mastery and ownership of the device
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The Identity Trap: No One Narrative Can Encompass the Different Dimensions of Diversity
As Britain welcomes its first Asian Prime Minister, Hardeep Matharu explores how our pluralistic society is reflected in the multiplicity of its migrant experience – as demonstrated by the different reactions to Rishi Sunak’s rise
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1,600 Civilians Killed by British Forces Since 1945 is ‘Tip of the Iceberg’
New data on civilian killings by British forces in colonial wars of independence, plus more recent conflicts, exposes the gaps in our knowledge of recent military history
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The Right-Wing Bid to Capture the National Trust Exposed
With days to go before the National Trust’s members choose its new council, the ‘Restore Trust’ group is campaigning in a manner that scarcely inspires trust. Brian Cathcart reports
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‘After the War, People are Still Very “Us Versus Them”’
Lindsey Kennedy and Nathan Paul Southern report from Bosnia and Herzegovina on the recent General Election and how the country’s complicated past continues to shape present realities
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Meloni’s Victory Shows Italian Fascism Never Truly Died
Angelo Boccato speaks to experts about the electoral success of Brothers of Italy
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Britannia Unchained Review: Imperial Nostalgia and the Unravelling of Social Progress
Sam Bright unpicks the Truss-Kwarteng manifesto, finding a worrying obsession with Britain’s distant economic past
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‘The Dark Heart of Trussonomics: The Mainstreaming of Libertarian Theories of Social Darwinism and Apartheid’
The legacy of the Nazi ideology of eugenics – popularised by Charles Murray’s controversial book ‘The Bell Curve’ – goes some way to explaining Trussonomics, writes Nafeez Ahmed
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‘The UK Must Help Bosnia Resist Putin’s Pressure’
Following Bosnia’s elections, Labour MP Fleur Anderson discusses the country’s prospects and what Britain can do to help
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‘There is a Connection Between their Roots in Fascism and their Embrace of these Ideas’: Italy’s Drift to the Far-Right
Adrian Goldberg spoke to David Broder – author of Mussolini’s Grandchildren: Fascism In Contemporary Italy – for the Byline Times Podcast about the historical roots of the country’s new far-right leadership
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British Identity: The Empire’s Spectacle
The mourning of the Queen’s death has been, largely unconsciously, a nation in a state of ‘appearing’, writes Joe Haward
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Putin’s Real War and His War of Words
Sian Norris considers Martha Gellhorn’s classic 1966 examination of propaganda, Real War And War Of Words, and updates it for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine
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‘Out of the Picture: After the Queen’s Death, Will Britain Finally Confront Itself?’
Britain has hidden a key part of our story from ourselves. With the Queen’s death marking a decisive shift, it’s time for us all to start building a better picture of our country and its past, writes Hardeep Matharu
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Seven Decades of Social Progress – But is the UK Heading Backwards?
The Byline Intelligence Team digs into the story of the past 70 years in data
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‘Queen Elizabeth II: Symbolically Potent, Politically Powerless’
Anthony Barnett reflects on the passing of the ‘New Elizabethan Age’ and how sovereignty and monarchy have moved apart
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‘They Took Everything From Us’: Russia’s Long War Against Ukraine
Larysa Deshko’s Ukrainian family has long resisted persecution from Moscow. The grandmother is continuing that tradition, as she explained to Maria Romanenko
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The Identity Trap: Race, Representation and the Rise of Conservative Diversity
Rishi Sunak is in the running to be Britain’s first prime minister of colour – but the debate around whether this will be a good thing for ethnic minorities has laid bare conflicting ideas about the ‘individual’ and the ‘collective’, writes Hardeep Matharu
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The Upside Down: Breaking the Frame of History
John Mitchinson lifts the lid on why the Luddites weren’t really ‘Luddite’
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The Upside Down: Themself Alone
John Mitchinson explores a surprisingly modern role model from the backstreets of Jacobean London
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Turmoil Continues Over Government’s Flagship National Holocaust Memorial
Overspending and legal wrangling is causing concerns over the £100 million commemoration, reports David Hencke
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‘Every Labour Government in History has Left Unemployment Higher’ – A Fact Check
Sam Bright refutes the Conservative Party’s widely deployed claim about Labour’s economic record
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‘Mr Jones’ Review: A Timely If Flawed Watch on the Ukrainian Holodomor
As another Russian dictator uses Ukrainian grain as a weapon of war, this 2020 historical thriller is worth a watch, writes Ellin Stein
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Woe to these Charlatans: Deportation and Destruction
The Government’s Rwanda plan is not about Rwanda or about ‘solving’ the issue of small boat crossings, says Reverend Joe Haward
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Resting Place: Marking My Grandmother’s Grave Helped Me Find My European Identity
Patrick Howse shares the story of three generations of his family – a tale of loss, discovery, conflict and plural identities
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The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: An Unprecedented Reign – But What Next for 21st Century Britain?
The Queen’s 70 years on the throne have seen Britain undergo extraordinary change – how will the monarchy’s constitutional and societal role continue to evolve in the years ahead?
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The Upside Down: We Won’t Bow Down – What I Learned in New Orleans
John Mitchinson reflects on his latest trip to the ‘Big Easy’
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What Man Has Made of Man: Confessions of an Optimist
Alexandra Hall Hall considers the mistakes she has made in believing that the arc of history was travelling in a more progressive direction
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The Forgotten Russia Report of 2008: How Ukraine is Paying the Price for Our Catastrophic Mistakes
Fourteen years ago, Andrew Levi briefed the Labour Foreign Secretary on the dangers of Putin’s Kremlin. Now the terrifying predictions of that report have been vindicated, it is vital to reckon with our failures
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Male, Pale and Colonial: Russell Group Universities Dominated by Named Buildings Reflective of a Bygone Era
Max Colbert investigates the backgrounds of those commemorated on leading university campuses
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The Government’s Rwanda Plan is a Relic of a Colonial Age
Britain’s historic hostility towards migration – by politicians of all stripes – has laid the groundwork for Priti Patel’s controversial plan to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda, says Thomas Perrett
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Resigning Matters: By Failing to Step Down, Johnson has Put Democracy on Standby
Prime Minister Boris Johnson in March 2022. Photo: Alberto Pezzali/PA/Alamy
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The Upside Down: Where Is the Man? The Many Lives of Pontius Pilate
John Mitchinson explores the enduring fascination with the man who was asked to send Jesus to his death
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Five Things Ukrainians Want You To Understand Now
Chris York provides an insight into Ukrainian perceptions of the war, and how they believe it is being misrepresented abroad
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The Bosnian Precedent: Anticipating Russia’s Crimes Against Humanity in Ukraine
Jasmin Mujanovic argues that Vladimir Putin’s imperial plan follows the genocidal path set out by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, and will be accompanied by the same strategy of disinformation and denial
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Backwards Britain: Having Rejected a European Future, We Can Only Hark Back to an Imperial Past
Hardeep Matharu explores how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has exposed the UK’s perilous retreat – at a time when collaboration and a new vision of itself is required to navigate the dangerous realities of a changing world
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MENSA Name Change Sparks Fury
Otto English reveals another controversial branding change in the name of gender equality
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Putin’s Gulag-Based Empire of Abduction, Deportation, and Modern Slavery
Brad Blitz and Alexandra Lewis explain how Russia’s mass deportation of Ukrainians is not an accident, but central to the ‘Ru.Lag’ – the Kremlin’s new form of political and economic control
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Are the Royals Trapped in a Gilded Cage – Or Is Britain?
Is the Royal Family trapped by Britain’s past or is the problem our inability to conceive of a social order without monarchy?
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Chornobyl and Nuclear Terrorism
Zarina Zabrisky speaks to an engineer at the Ukrainian nuclear plant about the risks posed by Russia’s invasion and control of the facility
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Putin’s Unjust War and the Enabling of Monsters
Otto English explores the Russian President’s warped justifications for the invasion of Ukraine that should terrify us all
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Jeremy Clarkson, The Sunday Times and the Slave Trade: Some Basic Failures of Journalism
In his eagerness to whitewash British history, Clarkson didn’t do quite enough research to get his facts straight, says Brian Cathcart
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Russia’s Long War and a Pivotal Moment in History
Canadian diplomat and politician Christopher Alexander argues that Putin is still fighting the wars of the 20th Century, and reversing his invasion of Ukraine could finally put those ghosts to rest
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What Does ‘De-Nazification’ Mean to Russians?
The rhetoric around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine serves to construct the other side as evil, helping to justify military aggression and human suffering, argue Dr Maren Rohe and Professor Sara Jones
