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How the First World War has come to be remembered has, over the past two decades; become a major concern for British historians, eclipsing earlier scholarly preoccupations with war guilt and its political consequences, the impact of the war on social structure and the status of women, and the conflict's role in the rise of the modernist aesthetic. This article surveys both scholarship on the cultural legacy of the First World War in Britain and the debates about how the memory of this war--the ' Great War'--has either retarded its consideration 'as history' or spurred new, if not always entirely successful, modes of inquiry into the relationships among war, society, and culture. The article argues that memory of the Great War must itself be treated as history; that the meaning of that memory should be placed within the context of the changing events, ideas, and identities of the entire twentieth century; and that more scholarly attention needs to be directed at the popular reception of representations of the Great War by the population at large, and at the power of the various forms of media by which those representations have been conveyed to their audience and have thereby shaped memory of the conflict.

This article departs from traditional writing on British economic warfare against the Axis during the Second World War by highlighting the efforts made by the British government to evade German 'counter-blockade' measures and secure access to European sources of supply. It does so by examining British efforts to obtain Swiss industrial equipment and manufactures after June 1940, when German military success effectively severed normal communications between the two countries. In practical terms, Britain's smuggling operations were enormously successful. Some 1.8m [pounds sterling] worth of Swiss contraband reached British hands by October 1944. They also, however, exercised considerable influence over the development of Anglo-Swiss relations and Switzerland's relations with its neighbours. In illuminating the scale of Britain's commercial interest in Switzerland after June 1940, the article lends weight to new writing on the Second World War, which emphasizes the neutrals' importance to the war economies and political ambitions of the two belligerent camps.

During the 1930s Great Britain tried to appease Germany by acceding to its demands to revise the international status quo in its favor. Had German demands been limited, appeasement might [...]

The decision by leaders to initiate or join a war is fundamentally a political decision. The impact of political decision making on international conflict does not end when a war [...]

The study describes an asymmetric relationship between Vietnamese Caodaists, followers of the Cao Dai religion, and the Japanese during World War Two. The Caodaists maintained a pro-Japanese stance throughout the occupation, based on their judgement that they could in this way advance the nationalist cause and achieve independence from French rule. The position of the Caodaists immediately after the end of World War Two was adversely affected as a result of their wartime collaboration., The period surrounding World War Two initiated a new chapter in Vietnamese history with Japan playing a considerable part, directly and indirectly, in shaping political, economic and social developments within [...]

strengthened by winning. Therefore there may be uncertainty about the effects of military victory as well as about whether to expect it. For a fuller and more rigorous analysis, see [...]

Bipolar systems are inherently more stable than multipolar configurations of power, Kenneth Waltz argues. His impirical justification for this conclusion relies on the multipolar systems that preceded in two world wars and the bipolar Cold War. The weakness of Waltz's argument is the small number of cases and the failure to consider alternative explanations for different levels of war in the three periods. In another historical period of both multi- and bipolarity--Europe from 1495 to 1559--I have found that polarity cannot account for the constant level of instability across a change in polarity in the system. Instead, the offense-balance, which includes the technical military balance, the cumulativity of power resources, and strategic beliefs, explains instability in the period. Drawing on this alternative theory, I reassess the high level of stability associated with the Cold War and speculate on the level of stability we can expect in the post-Cold War period.

The impact of investment program of United States, on economic growth, during World War II, is examined.