This week: four historians reflect on the insidious role of conspiracy theories in igniting revolution, defining legacies and bringing low the mighty. Also: we review new books on Rome’s heady heights and the trials of reporting from Stalin’s Soviet Union and revisit this month’s cover feature on the role of women in the Crusades.
Thriving in troubled times, the allure of a good conspiracy theory has proved irresistible whenever and wherever authorities are not trusted. What’s the damage? Joseph Hone, Jessica Wärnberg, David Armitage and Victoria Pagán respond.
Checking In Alan Philps’ The Red Hotel: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Disinformation War tells the story of the correspondents who reported on a period when Russia changed European, and world, history.
Queens of the Crusades As promoters, propagandists, patrons and warriors, women were everywhere during the Crusades.
The Emperors for the Job Tom Holland’s account of the Roman Empire at its height in Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age amounts to a marvellous vademecum.
Long Live the Ancien Régime! The coronation of Charles III was dense with meaning. It’s complicated; and easy to misunderstand.
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