A panoramic picture of international politics and the formation of the modern State.

The opposition to the omnipotence of the State - as symbolised by Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan (1651) - had a significant impact on the political organisation of European society. A liberal strategy intended to provide a protective legal status for individual citizens, whereas a social strategy aimed to strengthen the social fabric to counterbalance the power of the State. Gradually both strategies became interwo...

The question, really, is not who or what Rikste van Witzenburg-Meijer was.

My great-aunt; black sheep; adventuress; sartorial icon; party animal; truck driver; firewoman during the London Blitz; among the crew of a crashing Catalina; or passenger on the SS Rimutaka - core of the most heavily armed and longest-distance convoy of World War II.

The question is why she was who and what she was. Why did she become a self-declared journalist on the ocean liner JP Coen in 1927? Why did she marry qu...