The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Some historians have labelled it a ‘genocide’, whereas other have suggested that what King William I did in the north of England, in the winter of 1069/70, was not out of character with the standards of the time. But, whilst we should always try to avoid projecting...
When on 19 August 14 CE, the Emperor Augustus died, by his side was his wife, Livia Drusilla. Livia was a paragon of Roman womanly virtues, who put hardly a foot wrong in fifty years of marriage to the most scrutinised man of his time, and yet, from at least the 2nd...
De Gaulle wrote of Churchill, and might well have written of himself, that he was an ‘artist of history.’ Both men were artists in how they wrote their history, but also lived their lives as thought they were constructing a work of art. They understood that every act...
The historical context of Delhi – City of Spies is crucial to my novel because it is the true story of an unsolved murder that took place in New Delhi in 1954 at the height of the Cold War. Although my book is based on a family archive and is, therefore, subjective...
My short story City of the Damned traces the years of Hugh O’Neill's life from his defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601 to his exile in Rome surrounded by spies, plots, and the threat of poison. This is the man who came closest to ending English rule in Ireland and...
Almost as feted a family as the Tudors, the name conjures images of decadent royal Russia, of grizzled Siberian sorcerers and beautiful princesses (or grand duchesses), bejewelled palaces and icy, splendid St Petersburg. Although their reign spanned some several...
My memoir is a remarkable true story about how my family and I escaped communist rule in Czechoslovakia - one set against today’s conversations around freedom, communism, socialism, and legal vs. illegal immigration. The book is called Escaping the Grip of Eastern...
The Three Magi (and the word itself!) are, in some traditions, believed to take their origin from which monotheistic religion, centred in Iran? Aeschylus’ Persians focuses on the disastrous naval defeat in 480 BC of which invading king? How exactly was Julius Caesar...
Books of 2025 from Aspects of HistoryZeb Baker-Smith Editor of Aspects of HistorySeven Rivers by Vanessa Taylor explores how humanity and waterways have shaped one another across millennia, offering vivid historical portraits of the Nile, Danube, Ganges, Thames,...
A Fairytale for Christmas - Review Irish - and English - eyes were smiling at the Dominion Theatre on Sunday evening as the venue hosted Fairytale For Christmas, a celebratory show featuring Irish standards and festive hits. There may have been no discernible plot to...
