A determined ignorance of the dynamics of global capitalism is bringing about a long-overdue audit of British realities, says the academic David Edgerton

In the US they call it ‘starving the beast’ – cut taxes and, as revenue decreases, you create irresistible pressure for austerity, says Adam Tooze, an economic historian at Columbia University

The idea that working-class people voted Labour until Brexit came along is a fiction only the Conservatives benefit from, says modern history professor David Edgerton

Water company excuses for spills debunked by findings that most infrastructure was built in 20th century

With his insights as a historian of the modern UK, David Edgerton looks at Labour’s new affinity with the Tories

It’s time to let the fantasy of the “British nation” die.

Imposing unnecessary spending cuts would trap the UK in an economic doom loop.

The government must accept the limitations of its industrial strategy and focus on services that improve people’s lives, says David Edgerton, professor of modern British history

At the former PM’s Future of Britain conference, it felt as if the past 15 years of British politics never happened.

The royals were never above politics but drew great strength from Conservative support

Empire does not explain all of Britain’s history of elitism and exploitation, says historian David Edgerton

For a translation into Spanish see ‘¿Qué relación hay entre el Brexit y la respuesta del gobierno británico al Covid-19?’ . See also the version in The New European 30 April 2020. The government’s...

The declinist theories championed by Perry Anderson blame the problems of the present on an imagined past.

The idea that working-class people voted Labour until Brexit came along is a fiction only the Conservatives benefit from, says modern history professor David Edgerton

Labour must wake up and offer an alternative vision for Britain’s future – not just more competence, says historian David Edgerton

Labour has to do three things to win the next election, says former Labour MP Peter Mandelson

The long read: This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history – and overlapped with mainstream...

The declinist theories championed by Perry Anderson blame the problems of the present on an imagined past.

Keir Starmer would do well to study Wilson’s programme for national renewal.

It’s time to let the fantasy of the “British nation” die.

The Iron Lady actually grew the state and put up taxes. But in her time, as today, high earners won and the poor lost out, says Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty

Let’s take Starmer at its word that it is the party of wealth creation and growth, not redistribution and equality. What will this mean for our politics, asks David Edgerton, professor of modern...

In order to have a more activist state, the UK risks making exports to its biggest market more expensive

It is a conceit of journalists and academics that we should speak truth to power. We should instead speak about power. Much of what is spoken about power is not true. Power knows the truth but does...

Empire does not explain all of Britain’s history of elitism and exploitation, says historian David Edgerton

The idea that working-class people voted Labour until Brexit came along is a fiction only the Conservatives benefit from, says modern history professor David Edgerton

Looking to our past for guidance is a big mistake – we’re no longer the nation of the Second World War or Suez

Crises in productivity and wealth inequality won’t be solved with ideas from the 80s, says the author and historian David Edgerton

Abstract. Neither the idea that Britain ‘stood alone’ in 1940, nor that the British war was a ‘people’s war’, were at all common during the Second World Wa

Rebelliousness against any rule they don’t like has replaced political philosophy, says Alan Finlayson, professor of political and social theory

Editorial: Jeremy Hunt’s NIC cuts risk weakening the moral foundation on which Britain’s taxation system still relies

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Moore’s law for memory chips is a one-off that will not be replicated

Editorial: Does taking back control mean transferring authority from Westminster to Washington? It must do because Boris Johnson won’t say otherwise as sovereignty over unique British microprocessor...

Illustrious history is insufficient shield against a virus and grim reality of Brexit

Sanctions are a form of war, not an alternative to it, and like war, they are dangerous, damaging and unpredictable in impact

Rather than doing away with the old aristocracy, capitalism has found its own uses for the British monarchy. The two now function in tandem to preserve the status quo in Britain — and should be...

The PM’s chief adviser thinks postwar US successes can be replicated here. But context is everything, says history professor Glen O’Hara

Maintenance lacks the glamour of innovation—and is harder to measure

In this podcast leading historians of the Second World War (World War Two WWII) tell us how their work challenges the traditional narratives, offering new insights and overturning out-of-date...

This article appeared in the Prospect under the title ‘Labour has to free itself from the shackles of its own invented histories’. British politics has an intimate relationship to history, not least...

As of this morning, sterling is hovering precariously above the historic lows it has plumbed in recent days.

Military analogies are fuelling myths and fantasies about the UK’s wartime experience.