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## Promise of PeaceIn August 1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a boldly pacifist campaign speech, promising no American would have to go to war. It had seemed a realistic promise.## Today’s featured articles### How Iraq Became a Military StateWhen Iraq gained independence in 1932, its sovereignty remained constrained by Britain. The monarchy responded by building a powerful military that soon turned its guns on the country’s own people.### Charles Darwin’s Sexual RevolutionThe potential implications of Charles Darwin’s theory of sexual selection did not sit well with Victorian gender mores – or with Darwin himself.### How Windrush Changed the CaribbeanThe Windrush generation witnessed the Caribbean colonies from which they had emigrated achieve independence. Despite being an ocean away, they were not passive observers.## Most recentKing of Games: Politics, Polo, and the Raj‘The Shah’s Party and the Iranian Revolution That Followed’ reviewIn *The Shah’s Party and the Iranian Revolution That Followed* Robert Templer reveals the hubristic high point of the Pahlavi regime’s self-regard.‘The Cheese and the Worms’ by Carlo Ginzburg reviewA new translation marks the 50th anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg’s pioneering microhistory *The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller*.Often dismissed as a myth, was there a real man behind the legend of King Arthur?‘Charismatic Nations’ by Joep Leerssen review*Charismatic Nations: A Cultural History of Nationalism in Europe from 1800 to the Present* by Joep Leerssen looks to art and not politics for the birth of the nation.Portrait of the Author as a HistorianThe Absurdity of Albert CamusFor Albert Camus understanding the past and predicting the future may hinge on one fact: history is absurd.‘This Dark Night’ by Deborah Lutz review