France is in some ways one of Europe’s most orderly societies, and yet revolutionary violence is never far from the surface. Muriel Zagha joins Alastair Benn to discuss this month’s riots and what they mean for next year’s presidential election.

Image: ‘Liberty Leading the People’ by Eugene Delacroix (1830). Credit: Alamy

Britain and Germany have shared royal dynasties, forged pragmatic alliances, exchanged huge flows of capital and fought terrible wars against each other. In his new book, ‘Great Powers: A History of Britain and Germany’, Jan Rüger documents that symbiotic relationship’s twists and turns over the past 300 years.

Image: An anti-German British propaganda poster from the First World War. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Napoleon appointed a total of 26 Marshals between 1804 and 1815, and they became crucial to his military success. Yet only two of them fought alongside him at the Battle of Waterloo. Andrew Roberts sits down with Paul Lay to discuss his new book, ‘Napoleon and his Marshalls’.

Image: Napoleon near Borodino, by Vasily Vereshchagin (1897). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Earlier this week, a Russian drone strike hit the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv, bringing terror to the historic centre of Ukraine’s capital and damaging a symbol of national independence. Paul Josephson speaks to Jack Dickens about why Vladimir Putin is targeting Ukraine’s leading research institutes.

Image: The Soviet-era Duga radar near Chernobyl, Ukraine. Credit: Alamy

Earlier this month, the US confirmed for the first time that it had deployed a space weapon in Earth’s orbit. John B. Sheldon and Jack Dickens discuss the fight for extraterrestrial supremacy.

Image: A mural of a Soviet-era cosmonaut in Ukraine. Credit: Alamy

What did Benjamin Disraeli believe and why is he still invoked as a prophet of modern conservatism? Emily Jones speaks to Paul Lay about her new book, ‘The Disraeli Myth: The Making of a Conservative Tradition’.

Image: Portrait of Benjamin Disraeli, c.1860. Credit: Alamy

Simon Sebag Montefiore speaks to Jack Dickens about his new book, ‘The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East’.

Image: British troops on parade at Jaffa Gate after seizing military control of the region from the Ottoman Empire (1917). Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Philip Hensher speaks to Alastair Benn about his new book, ‘A History of the Novel in Britain’, a stylish and very personal survey of a great tradition.

Image: Portrait of Algernon Talmage circa 1915, by Hilda Fearon. Credit: Alamy