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Stories

  • Book extract

Inside the Cold War mind

Martin Sixsmith explores the competing national psyches of Russia and America, and a world divided between their irreconcilable visions of human nature.

  • Article

The unearthly children of science fiction’s Cold War

In the 1950s a new figure emerged in British novels, film and television: a disturbing young alien that revealed postwar society’s fear of the unruly power of teenagers.

  • Article

Remote romance and the common cold

Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.

  • Article

The psychological impact of nuclear war

How would you hold up psychologically if a nuclear bomb was dropped? Discover the British government’s secret predictions from the 1980s.

All stories (27)

Images

  • Boer War: wounded soldiers awaiting for medical help in the cold and damp. Watercolour by L. Calkin, 1899.
  • A seller of woollen materials for warmth in cold weather displays samples of his wares hanging from a bamboo pole. Watercolour by Zhou Pei Qun, ca. 1890.
  • Crimean War: frostbitten soldiers on their way to Balaclava. Wood engraving.
  • China: protection against nuclear, chemical and germ warfare. Colour lithographs, 1971.
  • China: protection against nuclear, chemical and germ warfare. Colour lithographs, 1971.
  • China: protection against nuclear, chemical and germ warfare. Colour lithographs, 1971.
  • China: protection against nuclear, chemical and germ warfare. Colour lithographs, 1971.
  • China: protection against nuclear, chemical and germ warfare. Colour lithographs, 1971.
  • China: protection against nuclear, chemical and germ warfare. Colour lithographs, 1971.
  • China: protection against nuclear, chemical and germ warfare. Colour lithographs, 1971.
All images (28)

Catalogue

All works (285)