Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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Blood and Ruins: how imperial jealousy fuelled WWII
An authoritative new work by Richard Overy argues that the war was fuelled by upstart Axis powers' desire for their own empires and the Allies wanting to defend their established colonial regimes. Correct, says JOHN ELLISON — but there are some other mistakes
Japanese troops invade China, 1931, leaving behind a puppet state
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
THE text of Richard Overy’s weighty new history of World War II runs close to 900 pages. Follow-up footnote source references add another 75 pages or so. Packed with facts and scholarly analysis, reinforcing his earlier works such as Russia’s War, its insights, clarity and objectivity are formidable.
Most of the first half is given over to the story of the war. Overy views the war, as it advances, from the standpoint of the rulers of the chief countries involved, building into the account their respective dilemmas, decisions, strategies and the reasons for these.
The rest of the book explores successively how resources were mobilised, military realities and developments, the organisation of economies, the justifications advanced for war, civilian resistance and political change sought, the psychiatric impact, war crimes and atrocities and finally, transition into a post-war world in which the Axis powers had failed in their objectives and in which the US was now the world’s most powerful country.
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