The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
At various times during my Rebellion trilogy, castles play an important role in the narrative, not least the one built in the south east corner of York which we know today as St Clifford’s Tower. The castle would become a significant factor in the spread of Norman...
In 1942 Hitler turned on Stalin and drove towards the Caucasus, aiming for the oil that would sustain the German advance. If he succeeded, the balance of the war could tilt. To hold them at bay, Stalin needed supplies quickly; fuel, vehicles, and equipment. Britain...
The pair of Anglican archbishops at Canterbury and York have been pillars of England’s ecclesiastical establishment for centuries, going back long before the Church of England itself. However, for a brief period between 787 and 803 England had a third archbishopric,...
When I first met historian Andrew Roberts, who wrote the foreword to my forthcoming book The Stay Behinds: Sweden’s Cold War Guardians, he asked: "How do you even research a stay-behind network?" Highly secret stay-behind groups were established across NATO-aligned...
The Victorians were good at what we might call ‘spin’. En masse, they’ve been remembered as prudish, reserved, industrious, God-fearing. Their political leaders, William Gladstone and Benjamin Disraeli, seen as giants, fighting battles to modernise the state, to...
The 1920s and 30s were a golden age for American foreign correspondents in Europe. Until 1920, American newspapers had taken most of their international news from press agencies such as Associated Press. But during the 1920s, American papers started relying on their...
For 14 years, Gabriele Tadino had faithfully served the Republic of Venice. One of the new breed of soldier, the military engineers, Tadino had done well in service of the Republic. The son of a doctor from Martinengo, a small town that was part of Venice’s Stato da...
The 10th century sees the creation of what we would recognise as ‘England’ – the combining of the Saxon kingdoms of Wessex with Mercia, with the additions of Kent, the kingdom of the East Angles, the Danish Five Boroughs, and the kingdom of York, and also the...
From 9pm on Tuesday 1 May 1945, the programming on North German radio underwent an abrupt tonal shift. Light, uplifting tunes gave way to sombre music, interspersed with urgent instructions to ‘stand by’ for an important government message. 90 minutes later, three...
It is telling just how few mainstream films have tackled ancient Rome in the 21st century, with two notable exceptions… you know the ones I mean. Gladiators and the arches of the Colosseum are two of the most iconic images we have of the Romans and the Eternal City’s...
