The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
My Enemy’s Enemy: The German-Japanese Intelligence Alliance The years leading up to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour saw a strengthening of diplomatic relations between Japan and Germany, and growing cooperation between their intelligence services. This is where I...
The letter begins as an intimate billet-doux. ‘Oh Harry, my own precious darling, your letter today is one long yearning cry for your little love.’ But within a few lines, a more sinister story begins to emerge. ‘Yesterday, I administered the powder you left me . . ....
Following the tale of two New York lost souls ‘dreaming bigger’ than they have a right to, Syncopation stars Devon-Elise Johnson (Anna Bianchi) and Jye Frasca (Henry Ribolow) in a warm, ballroom-inspired comedic amalgamation of frustration and hope. The guilded age of...
The young Mátyás Rákosi (1892–1971) loved London. The son of a Jewish shopkeeper in southern Hungary, he had made his way there via Hamburg in 1913. Already a socialist, Rákosi had immediately joined the Communist Club in London’s Fitzrovia, whose Hungarian members...
It’s one of history’s greatest myths: Napoleon Bonaparte was short. This is not quite true. In 1815 an English captain described him as “a remarkably strong, well-built man, about five feet seven inches high”. He was above average height of the time, and would have...
I sometimes wonder why wonderful factual stories are dramatized and the historical information changed to create a better story. I understand it is dramatic licence and perhaps it makes for a more exciting story particularly for a movie or TV series like The Crown or...
Colonialism: a Moral Reckoning contains a lot of history. If it does nothing else, I hope it will inform Britons, young and old, of the whole truth about our three-hundred-year career of imperial endeavour all over the world. For it tells not only of the tragic,...
The Slipperiness of History I was really interested to read recently that the coded letters of Mary Queen of Scots have been deciphered by modern computer scientists and decoders. Undoubtedly this will give us hitherto unknown insights into what we know about her and...
I keep overhearing people debating between themselves the comparison of Robert Oppenheimer and Alan Turing, his British near contemporary - Turing was six years younger - who was the originator of modern computing. I feel as if this is also a debate that I ought to...
Congratulations to Julian Jackson, the author of France on Trial: The Case of Marshal Petain, on winning the 2023 Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize. Our editor and part of our board attended an elegant and enjoyable event at the Travellers Club in Pall Mall. The champagne...
