This volume gathers contributions at the intersection of history and politics. The essays, covering such topics as diverse as Italian identity in the Tientsin concession, international refugee policies in the interwar period and after, and the myths and realities of the Ukrainian-Russian encounter in independent Ukraine, show that history provides better grounding as well as a more suitable paradigm for the study of politics than economics or other hard sciences. All of the contributors have a common link - doctoral work supervised and shaped by Professor Andre Liebich - but have since expanded widely in the world. Hence, the authors of this work at once share a common base and yet benefit from diverse viewpoints.