History - Quillette

Masai man standing against sunrise from Masai Mara National Park, Kenya.

Africa and the History of Civilisation

The history of Africa isn’t the history of the ‘black race,’ but a vital part of the history of human civilisation.

Ralph Leonard

16 Jul 2024 · 11 min read

Making America British Again

The story of William Cobbett and the American Revolutionary culture wars.

David A. Wilson

9 Jul 2024 · 13 min read

Illuminated manuscript style illustration of a coronation.

France’s Founding Fathers: A Review of ‘House of Lilies’

In a new book, Justine Firnhaber-Baker tells the story of the Capetian dynasty (987–1328), whose rulers stitched a set of medieval duchies and counties into a single kingdom.

Charlotte Allen

26 Jun 2024 · 20 min read

Three people holding nuclear disarmament protest signs in front of the White House.

Apocalypse Never

Contra the critics, the advent of nuclear weapons has made the world far safer.

Mike Coté

10 Jun 2024 · 12 min read

Demonstrators gather at the gates of Columbia University in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, NY, on Saturday, 20 April 2024.

Springtime for Sinwar

Notes on the pro-Hamas Left and its antecedents.

Jeffrey Herf

2 May 2024 · 21 min read

Men of the Royal Air Force feeding local children in the Indian famine areas

Bad History at the BBC

A new radio series about the 1943 Bengal famine favours culture-war polemic over rigorous scholarship.

Hira Jungkow

2 May 2024 · 6 min read

Narendra Modi addressing a gathering Ram Temple

Swastikas of Both Sorts: Hindu Nationalism's Fascist Nostalgia

Hindu nationalism is nostalgic for a golden age that never existed, before the invasions of first the Muslims and then the British.

Anwesh Satpathy

30 Apr 2024 · 12 min read

A black and white portrait of Henry Wallace with a background of colourful Soviet-era stamps.

Misadventures of a Stalinist Stooge

Benn Steil’s engrossing new biography of Henry A. Wallace is a timely cautionary tale and a masterpiece of 20th-century American history.

Ronald Radosh

25 Apr 2024 · 23 min read

A Pontian man wears traditional costume during a ceremony.

Erdogan’s Hypocrisy

While routinely declaring that Israel’s behaviour toward Hamas is genocidal, Erdogan has consistently denied the real genocides carried out by Turkey.

Benny Morris

22 Apr 2024 · 9 min read

Johann Blumenbach: The First Race Scientist

The accepted view is that the scientists of the European Enlightenment got the issue of race badly wrong. In fact, some of them got more right than they are usually given credit for.

Coel Hellier

13 Mar 2024 · 13 min read

Why Newly Independent Countries Must Reject Radical Decolonization

The contrasting histories of Singapore, Tanzania, and Sri Lanka demonstrate the dangers of attempting to erase the colonial past.

Jay Sophalkalyan

10 Mar 2024 · 15 min read

Attila Invictus

In the eighth instalment of ‘The So-Called Dark Ages,’ Herbert Bushman describes the Huns’ increasingly violent incursions into the Eastern half of the Roman Empire.

Herbert Bushman

8 Mar 2024 · 19 min read

In Defence of the EU

The European Union has been overwhelmingly successful in achieving its primary mission: guaranteeing peace.

James Graham

4 Mar 2024 · 13 min read

Greeks and Jews: Two Diaspora Peoples

The histories of these two groups reveals the sinister implications of an ideology that holds that some people are more “natural” to a place than others.

Katherine Kelaidis

1 Mar 2024 · 7 min read

The NYT Misrepresents the History of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

A welter of factual errors and misleading judgments has produced a distorted description of the 1948 War.

Benny Morris

27 Feb 2024 · 12 min read