Vesuvius is the only active volcano in mainland Europe, and has produced some of the continent’s largest volcanic eruptions. Located on Italy’s west coast, it overlooks the Bay and City of Naples and sits in the crater of the ancient Somma volcano.

A portret of Armin Lehman by David Hochschild and Ole Schell from Current_s Collective Journalism project.

Armin Lehman, in what seems like another life, was a member of the Hitler Youth. He’s was also with Hitler in his final days before the Nazi leader’s suicide in his bunker.

Forgotten for decades, a trove of post-war photographs from 1945 has recently been unearthed. The snapshots illustrate the devastation of the German capital and capture the desperation of the city in the weeks after the end of World War II. They also show glimpses of Berlin’s resilience.

‘Hitler is explicable in principle,” the historian Yehuda Bauer has said, “but that does not mean that he has been explained.” Nor, one is tempted to add, as the stack of books devoted to figuring him out grows ever higher, does it necessarily mean that he ever will be. How is it possible that a man so contemptuous of civilized values could rise to rule over one of Europe’s most civilized nations? What enabled him to retain the support of the German people as he openly pursued his plans for war and genocide? Was he an actor, or a true believer? A typical tyrant or a sui generis singularity?

Robert Ferguson ends his new history of the Vikings, The Hammer and the Cross, with a brief account of the crusading Norwegian king Sigurd, who in 1111 returned from the Holy Land with a splinter from the True Cross. Ferguson explains that the episode is a “stark symbol” of Scandinavia’s transition from paganism to Christianity. “We can be sure”, he concludes, “that King Sigurd’s Viking forefathers, had they come across [the True Cross] during a raid on a church, would have tossed it without a second thought into the flames of the fire they started on their way out.”

The month of April marks the 95th anniversary of the start of the Armenian genocide. An unusual television documentary shows what motivated the murderers and why Germany, and other countries, remained silent.

The title and embossed lettering on the cover suggest that the Cambridge University professor of classics may have jumped on the bandwagon presently rolling for ancient Rome. The reader soon discovers, however, that Mary Beard’s subject is not the rise of Rome’s 1,000-year Reich, but a scholarly disquisition on a much narrower topic: the ceremonial parade through the city granted to victorious military commanders.

It was meant to be the last of all years. Prophets from Rome to Moscow announced an imminent apocalypse. Yet in 1492, as the author explains in this admirable history, the world was only just beginning. In the process he has written a book of travels not unlike those of Marco Polo or of Sir John Mandeville, filled with marvels and sensations, rich in description and replete with anecdote. 1492 is a compendium of delights. Felipe Fernández-Armesto is a global voyager on a cultural and intellectual odyssey through one year.

The magisterial Cambridge History of the Cold War views the Cold War as an undifferentiated chunk of history. But the conflict between the superpowers was just one strand of history in the middle and late twentieth century, not the whole story.

By LAWRENCE D. FREEDMAN

Daniel Goldhagen’s book “Worse Than War” includes British colonial rule in Kenya in the 1950s among its case-studies of “elimination”. A close reading of the demographic evidence reveals the falsity of the argument, says David Elstein. Read more >> | openDemocracy

he Glorious Revolution of 1688 has long been consigned to the revolutionary B-list, dismissed as a bloodless back-room deal. A new history proves the event worthy of its name, writes The Revolution of 1688-89 was the culmination of a long and vitriolic argument about how to transform England into a modern nation,” Pincus writes. He [...]

n 1968 Robbert Kennedy, the younger brother of assasinated president John F. Kennedy was shot on the campaign trail in California. The Washington Post’s David Broder recalls the event that happend 40 years ago.

(1800 – 1900) Terug naar index Italië: Il Risorgimento; strijd voor vrijheid en eenheid door Daan Diederiks et het “Risorgimento” wordt de periode in de Italiaanse geschiedenis (1820-1871) aangeduid die leidde tot de eenwording en onafhankelijkheid en die de basis legde voor het moderne Italië. Het resultaat van deze periode van opstanden was een onafhankelijk [...]