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Jan 16, 2025 | 
ft.com | Brendan Simms
The late Jonathan Steinberg, a distinguished Cambridge historian, once distinguished between two types of Hohenzollerns, the dynasty that...
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
telegraph.co.uk | Brendan Simms
According to Mike Godwin’s celebrated law, if an internet discussion goes on long enough, someone will inevitably compare someone else to Hitler. In Thursday’s podcast discussion between Elon Musk and Alice Weidel, the leader of the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, it took about half an hour before the two of them got on to Nazism.
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Jan 6, 2025 | 
wsj.com | Brendan Simms
It is impossible not to be impressed by Christ Church, the grandest of all of the Oxford colleges. There is its signature bell tower (“Tom Tower,” as it is called), designed by Christopher Wren in the 17th century. A visitor to the college’s dining hall will be immediately struck by the portraits—as I was when I arrived as a lowly research fellow 30 years ago.
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Dec 19, 2024 | 
unherd.com | Brendan Simms
Christmas Reads 2024CultureEuropeGiuseppe Tomasi di LampedusaThe Leopard The great unification processes of the late 19th century inspired some of the world’s most famous authors. In 1886, Henry James explored the triangular relationship between a Confederate War veteran from Mississippi and two New England feminist abolitionists in The Bostonians.
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Dec 7, 2024 | 
fltimes.com | Joel Freedman |Brendan Simms |Charlie Laderman
In “Hitler’s American Gamble,” British historians Brendan Simms and Charlie Laderman concluded that it was Adolf Hitler’s Declaration of War on the United States on Dec. 11, 1941, more than the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
unherd.com | Brendan Simms
Austria-HungaryEuropeHabsburgsMulti-ethnic governanceMulticulturalismSectarian SeriesSocietyThe UnionUK riots
Keir Starmer has spoken a lot about how he hopes to bring Britain and the European Union closer together. His wish has been realised quicker than he could have imagined.
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Oct 4, 2024 | 
thecritic.co.uk | Brendan Simms
Britain has spent scarce resources in support of the fantasy of “Global Britain” This article is taken from the October 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. When asked what he wanted, the veteran American trade union leader Samuel Gompers replied, “More.” The authors of this timely book on Britain’s defence strategy, or lack of one, also want “more … more of everything”.
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Aug 21, 2024 | 
newstatesman.com | Brendan Simms
In Ukraine, the summer often brings surprises. Nobody predicted that at the end of August 2022, Ukrainian forces would begin the offensive that would push the Russians out of Kherson in the south; a few days later, they struck in the north-east around Kharkhiv and ejected the Russians from most of the territory they had taken in that area at the beginning of the war.
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Jul 25, 2024 | 
newstatesman.com | Brendan Simms
Domestic politics may take precedence during an election campaign. But politicians govern under the primacy of foreign policy. Robert Walpole – in many ways, our first prime minister – came to power on a promise to sort out the financial crash. He was felled by his failure to defend the European balance of power. William Pitt the Younger rose to office with plans to tackle corruption and the national debt, but his premiership was dominated by challenges from Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
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Jul 9, 2024 | 
historia.rp.pl | Brendan Simms
Zadaniem na najbliższą przyszłość było, jak twierdził [Hitler], zbudowanie „bazy prawnej” dla tegoż „totalnego państwa narodowosocjalistycznego”. Tydzień później NSDAP została ogłoszona jedyną partią polityczną Rzeszy. Na drugą połowę roku zaplanowano całą serię działań, które miały zapewnić całkowitą penetrację państwa przez partię. W większości okazały się one nieskuteczne, dlatego pewne sprawy pozostały niedokończone aż do ostatnich dni Rzeszy.
