Conan Fischer is Professor of European History at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. His publications include Stormtroopers: A Social, Economic and Ideological Analysis, 1929-35. (1983), The German Communists and the Rise of Nazism (1991),.The Rise of the Nazis (1995 & 2002), The Rise of National Socialism and the Working Classes in Weimar Germany (1996), and The Ruhr Crisis 1923-1924 ( 2003) . He is currently completing Europe between Democracy and Dictatorship; 1900-1945 (forthcoming 2008).

Alan Sharp is Professor of International Relations and Provost of the Coleraine campus of the University of Ulster. His publications include The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking in Paris 1919 (1991) - of which a new edition is appearing shortly,; Anglo-French Relations in the Twentieth Century: Rivalry and Cooperation (2000) - a collection of essays co-edited with Professor Glyn Stone and articles on various aspects of Lord Curzon's tenure of the Foreign Office and the career of Sir James Headlam-Morley.