In the mid-1960s, the United States was governed by what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called the "Vital Center"—a liberal consensus that believed in the New Deal at home and the containment of communism abroad. Yet, by 1968, this center had collapsed, assailed not just by the conservative right, but by a ferocious "New Left" that viewed liberalism as morally bankrupt.

History rarely moves in straight lines; it moves in jumps, breaks, and inflection points. Looking back at the 20th century, years like 1933, 1968, and 1989 stand out as moments where long-developing trends coalesced into irreversible change.

On the rainy night of May 10, 1933, a chaotic procession of Nazi students, SA stormtroopers, and SS guards marched into the Opernplatz in Berlin. Illuminated by floodlights and accompanied by brass bands playing patriotic anthems, they gathered around a massive pyre. Into the flames, they hurled some 20,000 books and manuscripts, designated as undeutsch (un-German). While works by Marx, Freud, and Remarque were consumed, a specific fury was directed at the archives looted four days earlier from a grand villa in the Tiergarten district: the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Research).

When historians look back at the early 21st century in Britain, the defining theme will not be Brexit or the pandemic, but austerity. It is a policy that has reshaped the social fabric of the nation more profoundly than any event since the Second World War. In this week’s podcast, I sat down with Dr. Rachel Morris to discuss her anthology, …

When we look back at the American mid-century—that chrome-plated, neon-lit era stretching roughly from 1945 to 1973—we are often confronted with a cultural memory that feels less like history and more like folklore. It is the America of The Wonder Years and Fred Flintstone: a place where a blue-collar worker with a high school education could own a detached suburban home, drive a new car every three years, and support a family on a single income.