The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
From Taranto to Pearl Harbor I’ve always been captivated by the daring and skill of the Fleet Air Arm's attack on the Italian fleet at Taranto in 1940 and the much larger airstrike on Pearl Harbour, carried out a year later by the Japanese Navy. They were pioneering...
In honour of Aspects of History launching its new podcast, Spymasters, I was asked to recommend five spy novels. I wouldn't say these are my definitive five favourite spy novels, as I could wake up tomorrow and recommend five others, but I hope that the choices give...
The Mysterious Death of Joseph Stalin Stalin was feeling weak on account of his unusually high blood pressure. He was also complaining of dizziness. Yet his temper was as fiery as ever on the evening of 28 February 1953. He had invited a few of his closest comrades to...
In the Legion XXII books (Capsarius and Bellatrix) our intrepid Romans come up against the warrior queen of Kush, but who was she, who were her people, and why did this conflict occur? Well, without wanting to drop a plethora of spoilers for the books, here’s a...
Legion at the British Museum When one imagines the Roman Empire, as so many do as we recently learnt, the sheer scale implies some kind of chaotic organisation. With the boundaries stretching from Scotland to Libya, and from Portugal to the Caspian Sea, the...
Tamerlane (Timur ‘the Lame’, c. 1327-1405) was the last major conqueror to emerge from Inner Asia. He was not himself a nomad – except insofar as he spent several decades in incessant campaigning. But the kernel of his army was made up of nomadic cavalry. Although a...
Templars: From Crusaders to Conspiracists Galilee, 4 July 1187. The dry heat caught the stench of blood and death and held it close to the earth – the fear was palpable and, for many, overwhelming. The men, already severely dehydrated, were almost finished. Even the...
The Graveyard of Empires: The Soviets Go Into Afghanistan The popular understanding of Cold War history is that the Communist takeover of Afghanistan in 1978 was a continuation of the “Great Game” and engineered by the Soviets, the truth is more complex. The Afghan...
Vesuvius in the Age of Revolution Volcanic is the first and only book I have written not focused on Britain, the only one that concerns the history of science, and the only one centred on Italy. So why the departure, the urge to explore something new? Restlessness...
Culture & Democracy in West Germany In the dictatorship of the Third Reich, the absence of democracy meant the absence of individual liberties. For visual artists, musicians, and men and women of letters, film and the stage, next to governmental content criticism...
