Max Hastings on 1914

Grand Admiral Tirpitz employed and English governess for his daughters, who completed their education at Cheltenham Ladies College.

Russia boomed in the last years before Armageddon. After 1917, its new Bolshevik rulers had become the fourth largest in the world, growing at almost ten percent annually. 

On Catherine the Great

Catherine's era exulted in artistic magnificence as international intercourse (in every sense of the word). But it also presented a brutal spectacle of government as organised crime.